I would love to get feedback from that selection process I intend to follow with all cucurbits:
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first of all my populations are between the f1 and the f3 stage, and I have reintroduced loads of diversity this year. So each is not all 3rd generation or all 2nd generation of crosses. - Bees do the job in here by the way -… That means I still had loads of small packets of seeds on top of my big bags of former years populations, from 100grams to about 2 kilos dry seeds in case of the heavy maximas. The small packets were either from you, or from the seeds I bought from the many different shops listed in our directory of european seed seller (see here for the directory and there for contextualixing). The intent was to gather seeds for good, once and for all, these all coming back crossed in the same jar at the end of this year, so that I will never ever go back to buying seeds anymore… and on top of that will be able to share loads at the international meeting and within our community. Also, as some are at the 3rd generation stage, and following Joseph’s approach I thought I could start selecting a bit heavily. At the end of the day, I have had to balance between will to select (on vigor) and necessity to make sure new genetics get in: so I put them in my patches, but them having dedicated sowing points/holes.
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Then after my solanacea transplant marathon (1000 transplants eventually), and different problems with mice and slugs on hot beds in the greenhouse, I was a bit sick of transplants, which on top of that I felt was not the way to go forward with cucurbits… So, even if I did not see anyone in my surroundings starting from direct sowing, I decided to do a nearly 100% direct sowing, which I did, and which is in itself a fair amount of selection pressure + which on the long run will help really growing strong 'localized" plants.
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Either in bare soil or with plastic tarps my density setting is not usual: I (at least) double the usually required density to favour crosses which are my first objective at this stage (on average second generation of crosses). It is also better to protect the ground earlier in season and prevent weediness so it may eventually became a population trait. So I simplified to 2 cases: “big ones” (all cucurbitas + gourds): 2 per square meter (2 per 10 square feet), “smaller vines” (all the others, including watermelons, melons, cucumbers): 4 per square meter.
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Also I oversowed to start selecting a bit: from 10 to 20 seeds per hole (2 holes per square meter on plastic tarps, so that eventually leaving 1 plant of the big ones/hole and 2 of the small ones per hole. On bare grouns it is similar: I used a rope with marks and densities are about the same).
So the oversowing allows me to select, early in the season on two things: -
first on vigor after emergence : I selected last wednesday (so +20 days post direct sowing) leaving double density compared to my objectives (for example 4 watermelons per hole where my density objective is of 2, or 2 maximas per sowing point on bare ground where my density objective is of 1)
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secondly on earliness of the first female flower (following an old discussion with @UnicornEmily
): later this week or next (at about +30-35 days from direct sowing) I will cut by 2 my present density: so looking at plants I will look for female flowers, and cull the latest plant regarding that criteria. That I won’t do on my keeper melon and watermelon patches, cause if I want to eat them by Christmas so “mabe” I better not harvest them in June ( 
)… so I think I will favor apparent vigor once again.
Examples of the first selection:
Melons, holes in the tarp:
Maximas, bare ground:
I mostly prefered cutting to pulling off not to damage the selected one’s roots.
Of course for those I have in small numbers (snake gourds and others) I will just let them grow without culling any of them, let them cross.
- It took me one day to do the first selection on 700 square meter (7000 square feet), so 1400 holes/sowing points, so I feel it is kind of adapted to a small garden: it is not really time consuming, if you have 20 points of direct sowing it would take you about half an hour per selection phase.