From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Knopp, Germany

I am interested in peoples opinion of whether or not selfed hot seeds are just as good as their parents. During a discussion yesterday in the chat room some think that if more growers grew selfed 712's or 723's, etc. that we would see big results, others say that there is probably a 50/50 chance that the seed may not carry the "good genetics" with it from it's mother. Being a newbie, and not really understanding the genetics behind it all, I always thought that a hot seed, selfed would have the potential to be a hot seed itself. What do you guys think?

1/6/2003 3:50:09 AM

Tacoma, WA

A 50% chance in whose garden? Perhaps in Geneva Emmons or David Stelt's garden. However, in the "average Joe's garden", I'd give it less than 5%!

Stan

1/6/2003 3:44:58 PM

Cornwall UK.(50N 5W)300ft.

I love this question.I hope the selfed seeds are just as good because I don't have any of the hot ones.lol.
We should learn a lot from Ken's 840 this year with several people giving it a good go.

1/6/2003 4:48:42 PM

Down Stream

Some people have had great results. I think I read before it doulbles the good genes or doulbles the bad genes.One way or the other.

1/6/2003 5:50:24 PM

Caceres, Spain

This is a very interesting question. I will let my mind fly a little, if you don't care.
More than any other thing we are looking for great mass in a pumpkin, afterwards, colour and shape are important things for many people as well, but size or better, weight, is the key to success. But for a pumpkin to grow colossal has to show several characteristics like general vigour, good root primary and secondary system, fast growth, split tendency free, disease resistance, fertilizer hunger, in many places heat resistance, good wall thickness, etc. Obviously all the previous can't come in only one gene, but in a combination of them. Perhaps some of those good qualities are in dominant genes, some in recessives and some others in codominant. Then, which can be the result of either a cross or even a self is very hard to prospect. When we find so many difficulties to play with Mendelian Genetic, we use to play with statistic, and we find that the most requested seeds, and the hottest in auctions, are the ones with bigger offspring, not the ones with better promising crosses, neither the biggest ones. But statistic analysis needs considerable numbers, and the normal offspring of most pumpkins is not so large, actually the hot seeds alone has that long progeny.

1/7/2003 4:23:47 AM

Caceres, Spain

(Continue)
Just to play a innocent game with ideas, we can imagine that the huge size of a pumpkin is due to only one gene, and that this gene belongs to the most common kind: recessive-dominant, then 3 possibilities are: AA, Aa, aa. Huge size should be dominant, because if not, all the pumpkins well grown would be enormous. Then, a pumpkin has one of this genes from her mother and one from her father, and we suppose that both parents were huge. We have three possibilities AAxAA, results: 4 huge:0 normal; AAxAa, results: 4 huge:0 normal; AaxAa, results: 3 huge:1 normal. Total possibilities: 11 huge:1 normal. This little exercise mean nothing at all, because the more genes are involved, the more complicated the analysis becomes, of course, but something sounds towards me from the bottom of the question: that there are many high potential seeds around, which don't grow very giant pumpkins not because their genetic, but because the soil where they were planted, the weather they suffered or, even more transcendental, the skill of the grower and the attention he/she payed to details. Don't you believe that it's more worth to spend $300 in old manure than in one hot seed?
Just some meager thoughts..........Don

1/7/2003 4:24:09 AM

Deer Park, WI

Don- your last statment is right on. I firmly believe that optimal genetics only benefit a grower who has fine tuned his/her soil and growing practices. A noob who plants the hottest/most expensive seed will usually see disappointing results due to environmental conditions.
continued...

1/7/2003 9:11:02 AM

Deer Park, WI

...To answer the initial question, Yes, selfed seeds can be as good as the original, and no, they cannot be. Please read on... If you are a believer in AG hybrid vigor, then a selfed seed from a vigor cross will not perform nearly as well as the original vigor cross. For instance, a selfed 723 will not produce like a 723. Disregard enviromental and growing practices for a moment, im strictly speaking from a genetic standpoint here. Its like hybrid corn seed- you can harvest the seed from these hybrids and they will not produce like the original, if at all. Its becuase hybrid vigor only lasts one generation. The explantion is pretty deep, so i'll leave it at that.

On the positive side, where hybrid vigor is not present, a selfed seed can do better than the original. I stated in a previous article that C. maxima does not lose vigor through repeated imbreeding. We have proof of that, in the Willemse line. He grew a 962 after 5-6 generations of selfing. I think that's proof enuf, eh? I think there's a belief in the pumpkin world that crossing huge pumpkin by different huge pumpkin= huger pumpkin. If you have made it this far into the post, then you probably realize this isnt completely true. In fact, repeated selfing can be the best way to creating a cross where this belief can come true, through the possibility of hybrid vigor. Speculation, of course.

Bottom line is this- dont be discouraged to grow selfed seeds just cuz they arent a cross of the two latest hotties. Selfed seeds are unique, in that they preserve the qualities of their mothers. If a seed you plant has unbelieveable characteristics, why botch it up by crossing it with some other dud? I grew the 568 andrews in 2001, it produced my 798, and was the most beautiful plant i have ever seen. The fruit was selfed, and I will be growing it in '03 for that reason. Power to the selfs!

1/7/2003 9:11:15 AM

Knopp, Germany

thanks to all for your input, it is greatly appreciated.

1/7/2003 9:50:47 AM

Bemidji, MN

so what's the thinking on a sibbed plant(ie. 712 x sib). Does the offspring retain the "punch" of the original 712? Or is it a weaker "punch" . Steve

1/7/2003 10:03:36 AM

Morris, Connecticut

735 Pukos 01 (846 Calai x self) - grew the 1083.5 Johnson 02

Seems like this seed retained the parents character. Anyone planning to grow it next year? The 735's on my list for next season.

1/7/2003 11:23:40 AM

Leicester, NY

BigWheels,
That's a good point. My 735 fruit never really grew that fast, perhaps 15-18 pounds per day at the peak growing rate, but the very nice size of the Johnson 1083.5 shows those 846 genetics are in there...Joe P.

1/7/2003 12:29:51 PM

Cornwall UK.(50N 5W)300ft.

I save seed from other veg. and some of those have been selfed/sibbed for an awful long time,the thinking with these old varieties is that what you lose in vigour from inbreeding you get back from selecting the best plants for seed.I start 50 onions and only put the best one down for seed so I'm only breeding from the top 2% of the population.
I'm keen on the selfing pumpkin's idea but if you only grow 1 plant of that seed each year it could be good/bad/indifferent and after 5 years you would end up with an average seed.I think I would want to plant all my garden with plants of the same seed to be sure of improvement.Next year maybe for now I have to try different crosses to see which I like best.

1/7/2003 12:38:44 PM

Southern Illinois

ok 5 years ago i bought a few pounds of ag seed planted them and every year i keep the seed from my biggest fruit,to plant the following year,i have noticed that the pumpkin weight have been the same every year,but this year i have had a few fruit that dont even look like a pumpkin,they look like old squash,people were asking me what they were said i have no idea,i have a burpee catalog,and i seen a picture of what some of them look like,it is called a old lakota sioux squash,i had a bunch of them this year,and i noticed on my fruit,that the seed were very small this year,so can some one explain why i have squash,developing from my pumpkins.

1/7/2003 1:06:57 PM

Long Island,New York

cross pollination between your "pumpkins" and your lacota squash during the summer of 2001..........G

1/7/2003 2:30:39 PM

Pumpkintown, SC

Ah yes, the summer of love <:^}>

1/7/2003 2:48:05 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

Ok that raises anither question. As a newbie I have it ingrained in my Brain to let seversl pumpkins get on the vine then cull to the fastest growing specimen...Now just suppose the genetics of the hot seed was slow start, medium growth rate over the long haul....but I cull this one in favor of a quick initial starting pumpkin thereby eliminating the one that was truely in possesion of the most favorable genetics...My question is if it is a hot seed wouldn't it be important to know the growth rate chart of the original to stop this cull or is it luck of the draw throughtout.

1/7/2003 4:26:46 PM

Long Island,New York

Certainly would be to your benefit to know all there is to know about every pkn grown from the seed your growing..trends may be seen that would/could indicate a better fruit to stick with..............G

1/7/2003 5:08:26 PM

Deer Park, WI

Chuck- when it comes to growth rate, I think the fastest one out of the blocks is the one to go with, so long as it is on the main. There's absolutely no way of knowing which fruit is gonna have the best seed. Ma nature takes care of determining that stuff, nothing we can do about it. If you look at the graphs of growth rates on my website, you'll notice that the ones that got off to the quickest start ended up the largest.

1/8/2003 8:57:42 AM

Appalachian Mtns.

Ohhh, ahhh....stimulate me some more! I love this kinda talk.
Let's say you have a self seed and that you continue to self for several generations (environmental factors excluded)and the successive weights go down and continue to go down, does that mean recessive genes are being expressed therefore it may be a dud? If the weights continue to remain constant what might that mean? And if weights remain constant for several generations, then you cross back to one of the females several generations back how would that affect the genetic makeup? A reinforcer of the original line or a type of vigor with that scenario?
And am I even making any sense?

1/9/2003 7:31:46 PM

Deer Park, WI

Those are good questions Kyle. Im afraid we dont know the answers to any of them yet. We would probably need 10 generations of selfing and 10 different lines all grown in the same garden under the same conditions to determine if selfing causes a drop in size. But like i have said before, plant breeders have found no decrease in vigor in C. maxima. And yes, you are making sense, just that you are asking questions that we dont have answers to yet. But its fun to speculate!

1/10/2003 11:34:07 AM

Appalachian Mtns.

OK, theoretically speaking then a 723 x self X 846 x self COULD be as productive as the original, or not. Correct? And this would be largely be determined by whether dominant or recessive genes are expressed in each individual self..correct?

1/10/2003 7:14:22 PM

Deer Park, WI

Yes, the cross you mentioned above could be as productive as the original. The expression of dominance and recessiveness is what governs the potential of all crosses, you are correct in that also. Now, all we need you to do is determine and characterize what and how many genes pertain to fruit size. Then were getting somewhere.

1/13/2003 8:39:01 AM