Cross-pollinating cucurbits

[realfood]

Interesting article in this month's Organic way in which they claim that the different species of Winter squash, such as C. maxima, C. Pepo, and C. moschata cannot cross with each other.
I do not think that this is true as there is a cross called squashkin which is a cross between C. moschata and C. maxima.
I wonder what our resident experts think?

[realfood]

[Jeannine]

Hey hey, it turned up at last!!  I have been expecting this  question for some time.

Actually both are true.

In the normal garden situation your squash are perfectly safe so don't worry on that one, just keep doing what you are doing.

There has been some manipulation of crossing is laboratories for some time now,  they did in fact  produce  a cross which took a while to get fairly stable, and has been released, often the seeds produced by the fruit for these manipulated hybrids are sterile so little chance of saving them.

So yes, you are right, it has happened, but in a way that the home gardener could not do.

Getting very close to GM modification to me although technically it is not.. but I am not comfortable with it.

I have no doubt that the seeds will sell as a new curiosity, but as many of us are valiantly trying to save old varieties of veggies that are dying out I am not sure personally wether this is a move forward.

Anyway I hope this answers your question a bit.

XX Jeannine

[realfood]

Thanks Jeanine for your input.
Two years ago, I was growing a butternut in the greenhouse and it starting producing female flowers weeks before the male flowers. So as to get maximum production, I took a male flower from some other winter squashes that I had flowering outside and hand pollinated the butternut. It did produce a fruit from the cross but there were only a few wizened seeds inside it. So it may not be so difficult to force the different varieties to cross.

[Jeannine]

I have tried it many many times in the thirty odd years I have been growing and collecting squash and have never succeeded to cross outside of their own group..but you never know.

There is one group that has split into two in the past few years, they have been known but some folks still argue they are the same group!!

Ceratinly worth keeping our eyes open though.

XX Jeannine