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That was my thought yes.

If your hydrogen peroxide comes as a 3% solution like ours no need to dilute it. You can do one minute of 3% H202 after the 1 minute of bleach if you like.

I have never scarified squash seed.

Honestly this won't hurt the seed but it would probably be fine untreated.

Coat the seed before I plant them, gotcha.
Thanks

That was my thought yes.

If your hydrogen peroxide comes as a 3% solution like ours no need to dilute it. You can do one minute of 3% H202 after the 1 minute of bleach if you like.

I have never scarified squash seed.

Honestly this won't hurt the seed but it would probably be fine untreated.

Soil is here is very poor sand and is naturally water repellent, so everything gets a quick soak at least of kelp and fulvate.
I think I'll germ these in peat pots, rather than straight into final position. I've never transplanted cucurbits before.
I'm doing 3 or 4 seed saving runs of bean and corn next season, one bean ( tuvaglieda ) I only have 22 of.
Those will be germed individually also, before the season indoors
I'll just run these with those.
Cheers

Diluted Hydrogen peroxide should work. Have tried it on seeds that became moldy before. I didn't dilute mine much due to it being over 10 years old.

I would try cinnamon - bleach and those things that the others mentioned. the

I would keep them separated for awhile until they completely dry out to prevent mold from spreading again - if it reappears on a few of them you can just treat those ones again. Afterwards you could plant them or store them.

They are dry now
Took 6 week in transit. Inside a yellow paper envelope, inside another yellow envelope. No plastic.
I'm pretty sure the mould is inhibited now, from temp and low humidity ( the moisture control thingy from the vitamins)
I'm just a bit anxious as our govt just changed import requirements, and banned all private import of seed to here.
These are my only attempt at maintaining this genetic, unless I want to drop $500 on a research importation
Thank you.

Cinnamon works well and will not inhibit germination

Can you recommend a *dose* and duration for treatment?
On scarification do you mean?

10% bleach one minute with a drop of free and clear dish soap. Stir. Rinse. Dry back out. Repeat before planting.

Thanks mate
So treat before storage and again on scarification/germination?

The moisture don't look too deep. If your season start in may a seedling toward a window in a big pot (1 liter) is possible for the most moldy seeds.The most important is a temperature above 15°C 59°F and a minimum of 12h of light per day.
The most dangerous for me is the seeds with the moisture on the germ.
For the seeds the less modly, you can wait a moment.

They are pretty woody with a solid ectosperm.
They won't be put out until October, I'm in Australia.
I garden indoors, so light hours and temps are controllable.
Thank you.

Hi, hope everyone is well.
I just got two packs of seed sent to me in the mail.
It looks like they were packed fresh.
They came in Manilla envelopes and had a heap of dried membrane as well as mould on the seed
I brushed the seed back by hand, seperated the best from the worst, and packed them with a moisture removing thing I got out of a bottle of vitamins, then put them into the fridge.
I didn't treat them, but the lower temperature and moisture should slow the mould right up

Anyway, these seed are almost impossible to get here, grey Hopi Hubbard, and I want to use them to breed to my other blue hubbards ( jarradale, Stella blue, blue Hokkaido etc.)
They are really good storing fruit, so I'd like to use the 18 seed I have.

Any advice on how to use these?
Do I kill the mould now, or just do it as I scarify to plant them out in a couple months?
All suggestions welcome.
Thanks

Bit of an update on the spookie.
Three weeks ago a cyclone tail went through and gave about 3 inches of rain in two days.
The spookie patch has died back from powdery and downy mildew.
Cushaw, Jarradale and musk from Provence all totally uneffected.
I have no other Pepo, so can't compare the spookie to its like.

The fruit I have from the spookie all look ok, I'll leave them 21 days to ripen before opening one.
They have a nice strong skin. Slight cosmetic damage only from snails, but none got inside
The spookie vines have really fine thorns, and need to be handled with gloves.

I'll use the spookie to breed to Nantucket next season.
They are worth going on with.

11 days since the rains began.
The orange stripe cushaw vines are pumping away, no issues.
The spookie vines are half white with PM.
The Pepo has thrown most of its female flowers lately also
It's definitely the heat causing the abortions.
I just didn't notice because the c.pepo had started setting fruit two weeks earlier than the cushaw.

# jarradale is throwing 20" wide leaves after the cyclone.
Jarradale is only an hour's drive from here, so she should fit in.

I believe the 200 plant minimum comes from the book "Seed to Seed" by Suzanne Ashworth. I also believe it mostly pertains to grossly inbred varieties. Painted Mountain was bred from many lines but I wonder if the 200 rule might still apply. I wonder that because the very specific mountain environment where it was bred might have quite rapidly reduced it to some very specific traits. It does not do well at all here in Indiana, nearly all ears overshoot the husks badly. Carol Deppe's manna series is selected from PM and also has that problem but not quite as bad.

I've heard it said that as long as the original patents represented a wide enough cross, that is different in many ways, that a single ear or even a single kernel could give rise to a new variety. I haven't been quite that limited, but that's the path I've taken and seems to be working very well, even in small populations.

Thank you.
So someone says something like, with an inbred population it would be good to have at least 200 individuals to maintain diversity, and a little down the track people start thinking they can't breed with less than 200.
Bit further down the track people start believing that anything less than 200 and the population will collapse.

I appreciate how you are using smaller batches. It allows closer observation, better care.

I only bought 100  Hopi pink and 100 Hopi turquoise to go with 100 Hopi blue to start some flour corn up.
They won't all germinate and I will cull plants before they throw pollen.

I wonder if you had a really small amount of corn, it would be worth neutering half the plants.
If you only repopulated a depressed population with the seed from the neutered corn there would be no self pollinated seed planted, at least
You could introduce the other half of the seed crop in later season.

This. I always do this for new corn seed. I also like to at least double up the seed order from each company if possible as well. A tiny little seed packet wont necessarily have much genetic diversity from the population and some seed companies may have started with only a packet of seed to grow themselves. I also like to bet against shady seed sellers in case they are lying about the seed they sold me. Buying the same variety from multiple sellers gives me peace of mind.

For my purple foliage corn population i like to periodically add in new seed from new varieties into the mix.

An example is i want to someday grow glass gem corn and add it to my population. But i also want as much genetic diversity within glass gem as possible. Does anyone know which seed company first introduced glass gem? They probably have the most diversity of that variety i would expect, so i should probably order from them.

It's a good idea to buy from multiple supliers. If thet have held their stock for more than a couple years you should get some degree of heterosis from the *outcross* to a population of the same line.

Breeding your purple corn as a type, rather than a variety is something more people should consider.
A seed permaculture centre (drylands.org.au) near to me only sells blends of peas, so first year saving is an F1.

From what I see from the glass corn a few ppl are breeding their own types, so you should be able to find good quality inbred populations to play with.
If it wasn't a popcorn I'd jump in.  It's so pretty.

Documenting here, as I tend to lose garden journals.

Currently have aproximately 64 corn plants growing, mostly short/small - hard to tell in some cases if things are a tiller or another corn plant since I planted in clumps. It's been a drought here (more than a month since last rain) and unseasonably hot since I planted, and I've not watered enough, probably. Every time I water, the corn seems to jump 6" overnight. Tallest corn is now chin height (on my 5'4 self), most (likely the second batch) is probably waist height or shorter. The biggest corn has been tasselling for a few weeks now, but I see no signs of silks forming, but the beginnings of cobs on some of the largest plants. Oh, and there are definitely bugs crawling in the smaller corn cobs.

My corn does look nicer than the commerical corn I see while driving - farmers don't typically irrigate here, so the corn is less than waist high (maybe knee high), and I suspect from the close spacing most is grown for silage.

I am considering if I should introduce another/different flour corn into the mix next year for diversity (Cherokee White?), possibly one developed for the hot/humid climate of the east, rather than the cooler/drier climate of Montana. It gets tricky, as the growing season here is still short. I'd prefer not to "lose" this year of corn selection for my climate, but also don't want to kill it with inbreeding. Or perhaps just presoak the seeds, and start it earlier when there is (usually) more water/cooler temps.

Yaz, do you honestly believe that you will inbreed your corn to the point you will kill it?

If you are only breeding one strain, then of course you are going to suffer some inbreeding depression.
The corn you have chosen was created by a very talented breeder from something like 60 varieties.
There is a lot of genetic wealth in your seed.

Here is a strategy you may wish to follow.
Grow your corn.
As much as yoir space and efforts will allow
If you notice some inbreeding depression, then introduce a new batch of the same corn.
If yours is truly inbred to the point of lower vigour, it would give you hybrid vigour with the new corn, but maintain the same general genotype

If you do want to add a completely new line to your patch, Puruvian morado will enjoy a cooler climate, or even Montana lavender clay that is also bred by the same guy as your painted mountain.
Both have a good amount of anthocyanin, so will be nutritious as well as attractive.

Combining different generations of your same seed is a sound technique, but I don't understand why the 200 plant minimum.
The Feroes island horse breed was repoulated from only 5 inbred individuals.

Baby cushaws make the best zuchinni

When i looked at last pic above,  think I worked it out.
I live in western Australia.
Average temps this month are 32°/90f

I had other fruit growing over the pavers, so didn't think how hot they would get.
The fruit doing well ( pic #2 ) goes into shade early arvo, but the others get quite a blast from midday onwards.
The first pic is a fruit I just culled because it is withering.
The seed end feels cool to touch like a cucumber. Top 2/3 of the fruit feels warm in my hand, and is withering. I think I am baking them.

I've got a lot of chilis n strawberry growing in same spot, and know they get stressed.
My biet alpha cropped a whole season without missing a beat on those pavers, but the Boston picklers I planted to replace them are coming through now, bitter and a few aborted flowers.
The spookies growing there are doing ok, but get the earlier shade

I'm going to run dwarf Cavendish in 40gal bags there next summer, to cut the heat on that side of the house.
Cheers

Hey.
It's only 14 hour day here, I live at 31°s so we don't get really long days.
This vine started to show female flowers at least every second internode and last week a female flower each internode.
They are yellow when little more than a matchstick.
I culled two other vines for only having make flowers and poor vigour
I think it might be magnesium deficiency actually.
I treated them with Dolomite lime, micronised Dolomite and cal-mag hydroponic solution.
I think I'll hit them with Epson salts.
Some of the older leaves are showing tip burn that I think maybe slight zinc lock out through magnesium deficiency.
The newest 2/3 of vines are perfect looking and vigorous though, so I don't know why just this one would keep aborting
No end rot on any of the Pepo pumpkins in same garden either.



## I did a bit more research and don't think it's a mag deficiency as I have no chlorosis.
We had a cyclone tail off over here last week
I didn't need to water the garden all last week when normally I have to daily.
I think maybe the roots got a bit oxygen stressed.
This is my most vigorous vine, so should have good root mass.
They are growing out of a brick herb planter, 8'*3'*3', not straight into the soil

## I thought about it some more. While they got a nice bit of moisture over last week, they never looked saturated. The leaves didn't look droopy ever.
For what ever reason, if the plant throws it's next two fruit, I'll cull it.
It's not fit to ths environment, certainly doesn't need to donate it's pollen to next season's plants