Since almost all yellow Cucurbita pepo Summer squash has a compact bush growth habit, I have been trying to breed a vining cultivar of Yellow Crookneck squash. Although yellow crookneck squash has been bred with a compact growth pattern to save growing space, I have found ironically that this growth pattern actually uses up more space than a climing, vining growth pattern since I trellis my squash whenever I grow it. Additionally, the compact growth of yellow crookneck squash leaves the plants vulnerable to attacks from squash vine borers and makes the plants less suitable for companion planting in the three sisters method.
If anyone wants to se my progress so far this year with this breeding project, I have already started a thread documenting my efforts on permies.com
https://permies.com/t/118745/Vining-Yellow-Crookneck-squash (https://permies.com/t/118745/Vining-Yellow-Crookneck-squash)
For the first part of this breeding project, I crossed a yellow crookneck squash with a vining non-bitter ornamental gourd. After a few false starts, I was finally able to make the cross pollination with the yellow crookneck as the male parent and the ornamental gourd as the female parent. Not long after the cross pollination, the yellow crookneck plant finally died from squash vine borer damage by the middle of August. Thankfully, I was still able to successfully recover over 200 viable F1 seeds from the cross pollinated fruit from the ornamental gourd by the end of the month.
The next part of this breeding project will be finding willing participants to pollinate a few F1 plants with other F1 plants and growing out as many of the F2 plants as possible to begin the selection for vining phenotype and large, yellow fruits. In my original research, I deternined that the gene controling compact growth habit in squash is determined by only one dominant gene so it should at least require two generations to restore vining growth habit into the phenotype of the plant.
For more information about the status of this project, you can visit the link to the original thread on the permies page.
Cool project! Sounds like a worthy goal. I have a project idea with crookedneck squash that I'd like to do, but its been on the back burner for awhile. One I'd like to breed a really warty white colored crooked neck squash. Just because. I find all the yellow ones unexciting. I've been planning on using a white acorn squash as the other parent line.
Another cool one would be to grab that trait from ornamental gourds that has half yellow-green. But I don't know much about that and/or if that is in a bitter gourd background or not. I think they might have yellow-green zucchini. EDIT: Zephyr.
Or other cool patterns like delicatta but in crookedneck.
Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2019-09-25, 05:45:08 PM
Another cool one would be to grab that trait from ornamental gourds that has half yellow-green. But I don't know much about that and/or if that is in a bitter gourd background or not. I think they might have yellow-green zucchini. EDIT: Zephyr.
(https://permies.com/t/118745/a/88860/65CA7E01-DC4B-4D6E-BA4B-902434B41AC4.jpeg)
In case you didn't get the chance to see my original post on the Permies forum, the female parent for the F1 seeds has bicolor skin. This may make it possible to breed a bicolored vining crookneck squash if I desired. This was not the original goal of my breeding project because there seem to be multiple genes affecting fruit shape as opposed to vine length, but any participant in the project is allowed to use the F1 cross to breed a bicolored squash if he pleases as long as he agrees not to patent the resulting variety.
I've been breeding aggressively vining summer squash for several years now. At this point the vast majority of what I get is yellow, super aggressive spiny vines, great disease and insect resistance, great storage potential, great taste and texture. I don't think I've ever gotten any crookneck fruits, but I am sure I have warted deep yellow straight necks that would be incredibly helpful to you in your project. Any interest?
If you already have some vining yellow squash, I'd definitely love to incorporate this strain into the final variety. This also means that the variety can be ready for sharing sooner than I originally expected.
As of Fall 2019, I currently only have seeds from a hand-pollinated F1 cross between a Yellow Crookneck and a non-bitter ornamental gourd. If you are interested in swapping some of your vining yellow squash seeds for my F1 ornamental gourd/yellow crookneck seeds I could do a trade.
The genetics and phenotype of the F1 generation of plants should be consistent and predictable (all bush with pear-shaped fruits) so you need not plant more than the bare minimum number of F1 plants, but when growing out the F2 generation from self-pollinated F2 seed, it is best to grow out as many plants as possible to find the most promising candidate plants for further breeding. About 25% of the F2 plants from my F1 seed should have vining growth since bush factor seems to be controlled by a single, dominant gene. If you are familiar with the hand-pollination process for squash, this may be your best option to controll the pollination of any squash plants from the seed I would give you.
By the way, are you able to post any images of your vining yellow squash?
Here's a couple pics. Eventually I'll edit a YouTube video on the summer squash project.
Quote from: esoteric_agriculture on 2019-12-12, 02:41:31 PM
Here's a couple pics. Eventually I'll edit a YouTube video on the summer squash project.
I'd definitely love to see the YouTube video when it's ready. What is the name of your channel?
By the way, I shared your pictures over on the permies forum just now. It's the same thread that I posted a link to in my first post on this thread.
My channel name is Esoteric Agriculture. I'm terribly slow these days about getting videos edited and uploaded but I'll get there eventually. :)
I managed to get a Summer Squash video edited and uploaded today.
What is most important to you? The crooked neck? Must it be a pepo? How about Canada Crookneck which is a moschata?
Quote from: Diane Whitehead on 2019-12-14, 07:50:35 PM
What is most important to you? The crooked neck? Must it be a pepo? How about Canada Crookneck which is a moschata?
Yellow Crookneck squash is often advertized as one of the oldest surviving cultivars of squash domesticated independently in North America, but its compact growth habit is not found in its wild relatives that grow in Missouri and Texas. Wild Cucurbita pepo in North Amerca has climbing vines with fully functional tendrils. My goal is to restore the primitive vining growth habit to yellow crookneck squash so that it is better adapted to growing on a trellis or for use as a ground cover in a three sisters garden.
For this project, it is necessary that the squash be Cucurbita pepo and not C. moschata.
The yellow Crookneck squash was my favorite as A kid, but it was the only squash of any kind anyone I ever knew ever grew. Most of my family still considers the word squash to refer only to yellow Crookneck. I quit growing it years ago because I didn't want bush squash any longer. I've been really pleased to see that phenotype showing up gradually in my project with no attempt on my part to push things in that direction.
Native Seeds Search sells seeds of a yellow crookneck which looks quite different from the one I have always grown.
Smooth skin, not much of a crook, a paler yellow. No mention of whether it is bush or vining.
https://www.nativeseeds.org/collections/squash-pumpkins-zucchini/products/ts333
Quote from: Diane Whitehead on 2020-02-06, 06:29:04 PM
Native Seeds Search sells seeds of a yellow crookneck which looks quite different from the one I have always grown.
Smooth skin, not much of a crook, a paler yellow. No mention of whether it is bush or vining.
https://www.nativeseeds.org/collections/squash-pumpkins-zucchini/products/ts333
A few years back NSS stopped selling exclusively indigenous SW crops and introduced some garden fare that grows well in the SW but is modern. This would be that. Too me the photo just looks like they harvested young. All summer squash have smooth skin when real young.
This particular strain of Yellow Crookneck squash carried by native seeds grows as a compact bush. The thick bush-vines do not have funtional tendrils and the plants are vulnerable to squash vine borer dammage if they are not protected. This is the strain I crossed with my non-bitter ornamental gourd last year. I had to use the ornamental gourd as the female parent since the crookneck squash is so vulnerable to SVB damage.
Well, I haven't found a vining crookneck yet, but just found a climbing zucchini from Pennard Plants in the U.K. I've done a quick Google search and it is available from a lot of English seedhouses, but not in North America that I could see.
Here is its description: Courgette , Climbing , Black Forest 'Patio' Cucurbita pepo , A new RARE (F1) hybrid with a unique climbing habit, Courgette 'Black Forest' makes a great space saving variety for growing in containers on the patio. The long stems will need tying onto a trellis or netting to gently train them upwards. Courgette Black Forest will produce heavy yields of dark green, smooth, cylindrical 15cm (6") courgettes if picked regularly throughout the summer. Height: 120cm (48"). Spread: 60cm (24"). Best Container Grown as it favours a very rich, well-drained soil. ,
Here is my latest update on the vining yellow crookneck project. This year, I grew out some seeds from @Esoteric Agriculture from his 2019 grow out. So far, I have obe promising seed fruit. I plan on setting aside some space next year for my F1 squash seeds as well. Below is a link to a video update on the project on Bitchute. I look forward to the next video update on the project from Esoteric Agriculture.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HKnxelyPJg0b/
I'm thinking this might be what you're looking for, but I can't tell if it's pepo until (if) I get it to mature seeds. The immature fruit are definitely crookneck. I got it in a mixed batch of random squash seeds last spring so I have no idea what it's called.
It's been two years since my last update on this project due to a poor year for squash last year. I've had much better results this year although I still only got four fruits out of more than twelve plants. Thankfully I had one plant that yielded the correct pear-shaped fruit and climbing vines. I saved seeds from both squash fruits in this picture (not just the pear-shaped one) since both fruits were fertilized with the same male parents.(https://permies.com/t/118745/a/191792/044A149D-DD37-4086-B3C8-7F4F49587A2C.jpeg)
So I finally made a pepo summer squash grex starting last year in 2021. Pictured in 2022 in the F1 or G1. The squash on the extreme left front is a Lofthouse crookneck. The squash closest to it are Mandan x Lofthouse crookneck.
Clear to me that the warts are dominant, the yellow is dominant. Stripes can be variable. Zucchini length and pumpkin shape both contribute to an intermediate form. Mandan x Crookneck is more like mandan in shape but there is a slight contribution there too- and size is increased in both hybrids.
A new 2022 parent is in the back Zephyr F1 and you see when fully mature there is a slight crook to it. Also true of some Goldini. There is one Lofthouse zucchini center, two Mandan squash to the left of the Lofthouse zucchini, and one one stray Tetuskabuto F1 to the left of those- very dark green. Squash on the right are Mandan x Lofthouse Zucchini. In 2023 there will be segregates and crosses of crosses and some selfing or crosses to the same cross so we should see a much wider array of possible phenotypes including possibly some large pumpkin shapes from Zucchini size plus Mandan shape, a return to crookneck, a return to zucchini, and who knows what all! The F2 next year should be a lot of fun.
Sorry I didn't see William's reply until now. I also purchased some Maycock landrace seeds this year that I might select to add genetic diversity. I mainly got the seeds to help rematriate them, but I could use any favorable genetics that can restore the vining trait into yellow crookneck squash as well as scalop and pattypan squash.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1402973086/30-diverse-zucchini-squash-mix-seeds
My wife is selling some of my excess pepo grex