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Yes I was wondering if hopi white and gray/pale gray were related. This one does say sprawling vines.
According to this video, it would be experimental for cold climates (110 day and likes heat).
Also the seeds he grows came from Squash | Seed Treasures
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A possible other good candidate in the same catalogue but also in this one : Ayerwaddy Delta Winter Squash - High Desert Seed + Gardens. Seems impressive, sold out now.
Those guys did also a video about landrace gardening : https://youtu.be/WcpX7j2WFzE?si=mYYTXsKAaz3kEXNH
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Maybe we should ask the people from Vibrant Earth Seeds if they have observed any of the behavior we’re searching for…
Some shower thoughts:
- Given that the Hopi squash is a drought tolerant variety with desert origins, I wonder if the rerooting behavior was selected for in that environment. I assume it would help with drought.
- I wonder about that thread on Permies where the grower had some success landracing squash. Perhaps part of his success was stumbling upon Maxima squash that reroots? I thought permaculture insect control had failed me, but land racing saved the day! (bugs forum at permies)
Also we’re not the first to think of this strategy:
https://permies.com/t/180899/Creating-Maxima-Squash-Landrace-Vigorous
“I want to select for extreme vigor, where the plant can get going quickly and get big and put down new roots as it spreads out, helping the plant be stronger and less susceptible to squash borers if one area gets damaged.”
Lower in the thread (check it out for photos): “The plant has also been extremely disease and pest resistant, and is amazingly vigorous. It also has no appararant damage from either squash bugs or vine borers. It seems to have the wonderful characteristic of putting down vigorous roots at every node that touches the soil, so I’m sure that helps strengthen the plant and help with its awesome vigor.”
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Also maybe we should ask Joseph about “white Hopi”…
Also, seems like Hopi Pale Grey is different from Hopi White according to anybody want to discuss Hopi squashes? | Homegrown Goodness
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Thinking about the root systems and carotene in the stems is fascinating! The tromboncino squash in my garden looks like it’s thriving even more than it was a couple months ago meanwhile the zucchini and cucumbers and winter squash (maximas and pepos at a friends place)have succumbed to the season..now I am thinking back to past years when I had the space fort big squash patches and though planted the same day I always harvested my butternuts (Early butternut Remix from adaptive seeds) two weeks after all the other squash, and yes indeed some were still alive and pushing… Ill take some pictures of the root systems and cross section of the tromboncino stem when i take it out!!
I imagine these impressive root systems would be more drought and disease tolerant, something very worth selecting, I will pay attention to this in future squash plots, and really it just opens up my mind too a whole other selection criteria, especially carotene, I can only imagine that would directly correlate to higher levels in the fruit as well! FUN!
Also your squash harvest is just stunning!!
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Thanks Taja, that is very encouraging! Glad you catched up with that surprising observation! I’ve marked the fruit whose stem had that criteria so that will let us know in a couple months if that is correlated to carotene in the fruit, storage capacity, overall great taste, etc.
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Yes, that’s really interesting indeed. Seems like rerooting is very relative not only to the variety or landrace but also to the fertility of the ground. Makes sense it’s always a sign of good health. I’ve just reached out to the owner of Seed Dreams (Tessa Gowans) to see if she still sell seeds, which is quite possible as she sells mostly locally. I’ve asked her also for Lower Salmon River and Sweet Meat (Oregon Homestead) of Carol Deppe : 2 other maximas she is offering and which have also astounding reviews relatively to vigor.
Also, I’ve discovered this website : http://clara.vrx.palo-alto.ca.us/, and even if partially outdated and with quite a few broken links, it contains very valuable informations - not specific to roots though!
Thanks Patate 
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I’ve grown oregon homestead sweet meat before (I’m pretty sure the seed is easy to find if Seed Dreams doesn’t work out).
Right now I have in my mix Desert Spirit Culinary Landrace’ Squash, which has Oregon Homestead in it’s ancestry. 'Desert Spirit Culinary Landrace' Squash – Experimental Farm Network Seed Store
I’ll have to pay more attention to roots!
Also, I think it’s possible to use some proxy attributes to detect rerooting. E.g. sprawling behavior, ability to survive squash bugs, drought resistance… Mentioning this because not many seed catalogs and growers will talk about roots.
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Exactly! I looked for “vigor” in catalogue as main proxy… we’ll see how it goes
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I’ve just been following this convo peripherally but wanted to simply add the Desert Spirit mix is quite robust and fun. Grew it out last year alongside a Buttercup grex and got some very fun pig planted specimens this year (didn’t intentionally plant maxima this season) I likely only watered a handful of times.
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Definitely a winner, with lots of diversity.
Thanks for those interesting observations Joseph! At my place this year I grew a whole row of 16 plants of these and they did worse than my squashes that themselves did poorly! They did up to a fruit per plant, small (1.5-2lbs, 1-1.5kgs), and in a couple of plants none, when my plants most did mostly just one 2-5lbs fruit, some 2 fruit. That is still a very poor harvest, probably already more adapted to my soil conditions.
Anyway now they are interbred in my mix and… I’ll sew how they taste in a couple weeks from now!
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Seed Dreams is still selling seeds, I’ve just had confirmation by owner via e-mail.
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Fruits from 8 different plants in 2025, coming from my very best fruit of 2024. Amazing diversity showing up.
Those plants grew better than most . Now we’ll see if taste quality was maintained or not.
Oups actually I just find others originating from that single “excellent” fruit:
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Couple pics from my field right now. Amarants and chia dominating, an undersown cover crop being on its way. It’s always so interesting to see how nature pushes through more certain crops than others on neighbouring plots…
This last pic is of a relatively weak winter cover crop post watermelons and melons on a plot which was covered with a plastic tarp.
All the amarants you see are from my own harvests, the chia is mostly store-bought and originating from South America with its photoperiod “problem” which I transform into an advantage there:
Sown in june, my cover crop was by then deemed necessary to protect the bare ground from sun radiation:
Buckwheat dominated first…
… Then after cutting it it was amarants turn…
And now it’s chia which is full on, still growing.
I discovered last year that chia (which is from Sage / Salvia family) has incredible root properties, so important for my sandy soil!!!
Now chia (and amarants) will die in couple days or weeks with the first frosts, and the (relay) winter cover crop, sown at the end of september, will take over the plots in the best places… but I have to say that it is too sparse in many places, its development seeming correlated with the shadow made by this “summer” cover crop : where the chia is at its best, winter cover crop is poor, where chia is poor, winter cover crop is great…
In any case, with my winter mild frosts in here, I’ve assured life “maintenance” until next crop, somehow.
Winter cover crop are based on faba (broadbeens), rye, oats, daikon, mustard, vetsch and peas, all bought from an agricultural shop in 20kg bags each.
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Chia roots of some average plant:
Though the craziest “structurator” being seemingly finger millet (eleusine coracana), a cereal which is a nitrogen fixator with limited aerial biomass but crazy root system… very very hard to pull out:
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Pre-selection on high yield per plant before taste selection of moschata and probably separation of some seeds for sub-projects
So cumulated selections during this year and to this day :
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Early vigor selection post germination (see prior posts in that topic)
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Long storage selection (= 3 months post harvest. Those with the slightest conservation defaults have been culled in prior weeks)
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High yields
These are all from the patch of 130 plants of the “best of the best” of last year, as far as taste was concerned. My 2 divergent phenotypic populations have already been selected separately.
Out of those pre-selected, I’ve also pre-selected a couple which combine not only great yields (9-12 kilos per plant in my sxxxxxy soil conditions and a very -too- early harvest) but also were on plants which were still crazily growing by harvest time, and all with vines longer than 20meters! All these had also strong main root and good to extreme rerooting capacities. Some showing clear signs of very good microbial interaction (rhizosheath was assessed rapidly).
I know that by reexamining my database built for the occasion (using Kobotoolbox and a tablet).
I hope those combine those yield, growth and overall pla’t health qualities with excellent taste, as it’s my “elite selection” so far :
Others still growing like crazy at harvest, high yielding, but rather immature :
On the first of those 2 pics the “251-plant” on the higher shelf was the craziest of all plants with not only 3 big MATURE fruits by the time of harvest (orange colour + big dry peduncle), but also still growing crazily, with more than 25meters of vines, strong rerooting capacities everywhere and… male AND female flowers showing up on the 27th of September (harvest day) !!!… knowing that out first mild frost is usually around the 15th of November and knowing that in my experience healthy mature moschata plants handle very well low temps… that speaks to the potential of such a plant! Especially if we bring them through a breeding journey…
Out of those 130 plants, about 15% had died by then (contrasting with maxima 90% dead at their harvest 15 days before!), 60% had stopped their growth (= stagnating to dying slowly), and then out of those 25% remaining, all growing vigorously, 15% were super late, growing their first fruits (green at harvest)… it’s the case of those on the last pic. And so that’s speaks to the crazy nature of that “251”, the only one in those 10% remaining with both high yield already acquired, with these 3 nice sized and good looking fruits, well coloured, with strong and dry peduncle… and then still willing to give more by the end of the season: the very one in 130 plants.
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Amazing work! The ones on the highest shelf (pic 1) also look like they have good potential for flesh vibrance/color and taste. Keep us updated!
Yes that’s the ones I meant! 
and… it’s very good tasting! Some butter like flavor. That’s very good news 
Here it is opened:
I’ve also opened some of those high yielders and many were surprisingly dark orange :
Those with this particular shape were all dark fleshed :
I suspect they come from crosses with plants started from seeds of @Tanjaeskildsen in 2024. Is that shape familiar to you Tanja?
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