Based on my first year growing diverse moschata and taste testing every fruit with chef students, I’m considering dividing my hypothetical moschata landrace into two types, one for cooking (ripe), the other for using raw (unripe):
Moschata squash for cooking: high sweetness, buttery, nutty. Starches allowed/wanted. I find the starches give an unpleasant mouthfeel when raw, so I’d like to use this ripe and cooked.
Zuchetta: Long-necked green moschata used as zucchini. Students liked the firmness and it’s mostly a consistency thing to eat this raw or lightly cooked. Some fruits had a bit more aroma (cucumber, melon) than others. I prefer this over zucchini in some ways.
I expect I will get a harder time selecting for taste as I have to separate fruits for eating and fruits for seed, so I need to keep track of which plant the fruit comes from.
Looking at the available seed I see varieties that seem to contain a lot genetic diversity already. Many ‘tromboncino’ varieties do not look uniform. I might get same-name tromboncino varieties from different sources on the assumption that they will come out different. I’ve found ‘Zucchetta Rampicante’ and ‘Tromboncino Albenga’ as some variations as well as Michael Mazourek’s Centercut Squash.
Other long-necked moschata I’m considering to include that don’t seem to be traditionally used unripe (searched for at cucurbitophile.fr):
Courge de Nice à fruits longs
Pennsylvania Dutch crookneck
Menina Brasileira
Neck pumpkin
Longue de Sicile
La push
Catawbas ochre
Mallorca
Carrizo
Comestible de Chine
Apache pear
Rajada seca
There are some look alikes I want to stay clear of that are actually not moschata, like Serpent of Sicily - a Lagenaria siceraria used in the same way.
Have any of you tried to landrace a zuchetta-type moschata and what has your experiences been? If you have any ideas of how to do it and where there might be good genetic sources, please chip in too. I don’t mind if this thread evolves into a general purpose zuchetta discussion.
We decided that we prefer the tromboncino types over zucchini so we no longer grow zucchini. There isn’t much diversity here in Australia in the tromboncino types (and we can’t import cucurbit seeds) so we’ll cross them into whatever other long necked are already here. We have plenty of space so we can keep the eating ones separate from our efforts at landracing until we’re happy with the landrace. We’re just heading into summer now so we won’t be starting this project until next growing season.
Good luck with your project. I’ll follow with interest.
Great to hear Ray. I’d like to invite you to use this thread next year for any updates and learnings. You will grow two separate patches of zuchetta - one for eating, one for harvesting seed, is that right? I assume it’s not to isolate pollen, but just that you will reserve a certain amount of space for seed harvesting. I wonder if you could eat from the whole patch and then just selectively reserve certain plants that have potential, as you go. This is what I would like to do here. I’m just not sure how to do it (I won’t be the one primarily eating the zuchetta, so I need to setup an on-going feedback mechanism with the students so they will tell me about fruits that are particularly tasty or bad).
I would set the stage for simple and low demanding.
The squash for immature eating will need to be harvested often for higher yields. I would plant those closer to the entrance of the cultivated area.
Additionally, for squash for immature eating, I would let a few of the strongest and earliest plants ripen their fruit without picking from those plants. The rational is if something bad happens such as weather or bugs, at least you get seed from early elites. The rest of them, I would harvest as often as possible for maximum yield. I would get some logger flagging or something to mark which plants are producing the highest number of fruit. Then I would at some point stop harvesting from those elite producers and let them ripen fruit.
For the squash used as mature, it’s zero thinking and organizing needed. It’s simply a matter of letting them show you what they can do. Once it’s over, select what you like.
Your interest is so precise that I doubt you will find a recipe for it. The first cook that made the pumpkin pie delicious delivered value to the world. The first illiterate jungle dweller who discovered a mutation in his bowl gourd that tasted sweet and nutty and shared seeds delivered value.
In your climate, lenght of the season might not be as big of a problem, but still I would recommend you to try as many varieties as you can find. It seems likely that some might not mature in time. I haven’t got experience of those long types but I would assume they have on average similar heat requirements as any moschata.
Another considerition is a compact growth for easier harvest for those used as immature. Atleast in my moschata x argyrosperma population I had this year some that were clearly more compact. I didn’t try to isolate them yet, but I might do that or move my population towards more compact growth in the future. I see it as a beneficial trait in general with cucurbits. Easier to plan your plantings when you know they will stay close to where you planted them and not travel 5 meters or more.
I want to separate two different lines of Cucurbita moschata. This zuchetta type and a butternut type.
What separation distance do you recommend so cross-pollination is minimal?
I can live with some crosses. Both types I might select for long necks. But I want the zuchetta type to not be grainy in texture raw (starches), while the butternut type is allowed to have starches.
@KadenceLunemann Oh boy, I think your standard is way too high for my needs! That would practically make all my seed saving of Cucurbita pointless unless I make a campaign in a 1,5-2 mile radius convincing all neighbors to not grow the same plants. I just want to minimize cross-pollination, not eradicate it. I wonder if someone here has tried growing two different lines of moschata and what distance they’ve gone with and had some success with?
I read in @Joseph_Lofthouse 's book that you grow several types of the same Cucurbita species in the same field - how large separation distance did you go with?
I like to plant a row of flowers or tall plants between the two landraces, you will get almost no cross pollination.
Maybe 20 meters is more than enought.
Not my recommendation lol. That’s what everything online says.
I’m not separating anything with my squash, but I’m not looking for more than one type or line in the same family.
Most recommendations online are based on the idea that you need total separation to maintain purity and continuously inbreed the variety. I have different goals and don’t mind a bee or two transfers some pollen from the other line. But most of the cross-pollination I’d like to happen inside the groups.
If my memory serves me right, bees/bumblebees usually would have a range of maybe 20-30m, possibly high end 50-100m. Those recommendations of kilometers aren’t really designed for individual growers. Certainly it’s possible that you get cross pollination even from that distance, but statistics hugely favours some meters over huge distances. With something like 10 meter separation you could probably expect that crosess between those 2 different types are less than 10%. Likely way less, but even with 10% it’s maybe more helpful than harmful. There is still going to be selecting even without so little more shouldn’t matter when you also get little outside genetic material.
A house, trees, hedges, anything to redirect pollinators routes help. Also flowers, taller better, if the offer pollen and nectar at the same time as the cucurbits.
Not intentionally. I planted a line of mochata apart from other patch and I saw zero cross pollination.
One think that can help to avoid crosses is plant others cucurbitaceae between the two landraces, like melon, watermelon, maxima, ficifolia, luffa… The bees like to go to the same types of flowers.
I like to plant a row of sunflower, or zinnias in between some of my rows to attract more bees to that part of the garden.
I got zero pollination in three tomatillo plants space out less than 8 meters because is was full of flowers (the other tomatillo plants dried up).
I think the same, that 10% of cross pollination it will be of great help. It is nice to add more genetic variety every year, and if it is from a locally adapted grex even better.
This year, I didn’t have access to the growing spaces as last year and had to adapt. I ordered seed of any long-necked moschata I could find and also ordered some of the same well-known zucchetta varieties from different places, assuming they would contain some different genetics. I had to plant out much later than I would have liked, but decided to give it a go, making sure to save enough seed to try again next year under better conditions if this year would fail.
During the peak of summer, it was rainy and cloudy for a long time. Then a drough happened in late summer. Early september, I finally start seeing tiny fruits.
I don’t expect these to mature into viable seed. In October, they haven’t grown much, although the color has changed more light brownish. I’ll wait a week more or so and then harvest them to look for seed.
I allowed the plants to stay for a few weeks longer before harvesting. This weekend we’ll get frost so I took all fruits now. I’m surprised how much the plants continued to set fruit here at the end. As you can see, the fruits are tiny. Some of them still have blossoms on and didn’t get to pollination. I hope some of the least immature fruit will have just a few viable seed for next year. I will start the plants earlier too and feel optimistic that this will eventually work. You can see my target image in the above photo by Julia
