Fruit/Veg Breeding, Landrace - Fool's Errand?

[Squingy]

I want to start curcubit or squash breeding, someone on here must have some experience breeding and could share their tips? I already self collect isolated seeds. I want to do the opposite and deliberately mix varieties to see what I'll end up with.

Research led me to landrace. Basically you plant stuff, DON'T isolate. When you get all kinds of crazy things you select whatever characteristics you want to breed for. But it's survival of the fittest, so what u end up with eventually is genetically diverse and ideally suited to yr microclimate.
This means you CAN breed F1s as long as they aren't male sterile which is another thing. You'll get craziness next year and maybe the year after but you should be able to keep selecting.

I'm upset at this since I threw away my F1 melon seeds. I treated the plants harshly got just 1 melon from 4 seeds but was the sweetest thing I've ever eaten. Should have saved those to experiment with arggh!

It's going to be a long road. Question again, does anyone have any advice/experience that could help? Is this a fool's errand?

[veggiechicken]

You could start by reading Real Seeds advice Breed your own squash variety

[Guest]

Landrace can still be isolated in order to select without running the risk that your f2 has become something completely random due to critters and you start the whole process again. You have to inbreed for a fair few generations before you get a stable variety. Breeding squash as your first breeding program is interesting (male and female flowers and they are beast of plants) I once had pumpkins with marrow tasting flesh I think I was on f3 at that stage and gave up. (It was some time ago)

Good luck. let us know how you get on.

[Thelma Sanders]

That's what puts me off trying, when your next crop could be tasteless or worse, taste horrible! I'd need a lot of land before I could possibly waste some of it growing things that are hit and miss.

Good luck to you if you do decide to try

[mothhawk]

I thought Landrace was a breed of pig....

[Thelma Sanders]

Can be any animal or crop bred (naturally) to suit a local environment

[mothhawk]

Can be any animal or crop bred (naturally) to suit a local environment

Every day a school day. Thanks for the explanation TS.

[Mitzi]

Ideally you want to grow a lot of plants especially at F2 - F4 generations otherwise it's likely to be a lot more miss than hit.

[Kirk]

Owing to genetics I would have expected isolated seeds to vary, just to a smaller or narrower extent.

A red flower can be red as the dominent gene is the red one, but there can be a dominent red and a non-dominent yellow gene.

If that crosses with another red dominent, yellow non dominent you have 4 possible results.

2 are red dominent with yellow non-dominent, so red.
1 is both are red dominent genes, so again red.
The final is the result is 2 yellow genes. - so a yelow result from 2 reds that cross.

Squash will be the same you have in effect 3 in 4 following some domanence aspect and 1 in 4 heading off some other direction. As there is more then 1 gene involved there is greater probability of divergence. Look up Gregor Mendel's work on this from his time with peas or sweet peas of something. He was the father of genetics.

[Trouvere]

I've grown squash whose seeds came from a Buttercup and whose pollen parent - judging by the large slightly misshapen and deep orange fruits that resulted - was the Uchiki Kuri that had been grown in the same tunnelhouse. Perfectly tasty.

I grew 8 plants of the F2 generation this year and while most still produce orange fruits with a few green stripes, some plants make fruits that look just like Buttercup again.

I think I will sow some 2017 seeds again next year. I don't really have any long-term squash breeding goals, though. The tunnelhouse is a bit too far from home to be dashing out there every morning with rubber bands and paintbrushes.

[Squingy]

Thanks everyone for sharing your advice.

The actual experiences from Norfolkgrey and Trouvere were exactly what I wanted!

*Norfolkgrey got at marrow-flesh-pumpkins at F3 and gave up
*Trouvere got tasty produce mixed appearances uchiki kuri + butternut

Perhaps I need to have a clear goal for select qualities.
for example [chestnuty flavour of uchiki kuri] + [blue like blue hubbard]

I've sobered up to the potential for disappointment, the need for lots of land which I don't really have and the more miss than hit especially at f2-f4.

I'm not bothered by investing time/£ breeding things that are horrible. If I have two pure strains, they have already been bred for taste. So, if I isolate, the progeny, in general should also be good tasting. Bar the the odd spontaneous mutation and rare ancestral throwback which I'll likely select out anyway.

I'm going to need a freezer and a written plan though.

[Squingy]

You could start by reading Real Seeds advice Breed your own squash variety

I like the idea of Real Seeds and the info is sound.
It adds a new stage of random crazy as you don't know what's the parents of the squash your seeds came from, so who knows what qualities you'll end up with?! That has its pros and cons.

[Squingy]

Landrace can still be isolated in order to select without running the risk that your f2 has become something completely random

I'm going to use your advice Norfolkgrey. Looks like I don't have the space to risk growing completely random crosses so I'd have to do some isolation. Think I'd leave only a really small select area to wild pollinate, and only save seed from that if they're really exceptional (virus resistance etc). rest will go to deliberate crossing.

Thanks again.

[veggiechicken]

If you don't have a lot of growing space, why don't you try breeding something different - like runner beans, that don't take up as much room?

[Guest]

Poly used to breed spuds (true potato seeds) and toms https://mostlytomatomania.blogspot.c...label/Breeding

Daughter of the soil site is also worth a read. she breeds spuds and peas. Daughter of the Soil: Search results for breeding

Bet you wish you hadn't mentioned it now