"Wild" Pumpkin Vine Question
 

"lwhaley" wrote in message
oups.com...
OK, I don't know whether or not the squash will be green. What I
should have said is we don't know what color it will be. I did say it
would likely be green since this was a possibility previously
mentioned. Green is a color which is possible. Likely may have been
an innacurate adjective. I should have used possibly.

To JoeSpareBedroom: Actually I did not suggest successful cross
pollinations were impossible. I did not use the word impossible at
any point in my post. Quite the opposite in fact. I said that they
were notorious outcrossers. The word successful, in my mind, would
only refer to the production of viable fruit and seed. While the vine
will produce fruit and seed, it will not produce squash that is like
the parents unless it were grown either in isolation or by performing
hand pollinations. It is still successful from the standpoint of
producing fruit and seed.

We don't know anything about this seed including whether or not it is
even a pumpkin. What we do know is that it will product some kind of
fruit and seed, given a chance. What kind of squash it will produce
is unknown. Anything is possible. It is also possilbe that it will
grow squash that is true to type if the seed was originally grown in
isolation. We can never know in this case because the orignial type is
unknown. In the case of field pumkins it would be entirely possible to
get a pumkin since they are grown in large field and probabley not many
other squash nearby. This would qualify as isolation. We cannot know
one way or the other since the origin of the seed is entirely unknown.
All squash or pumpkins are edible, more or less. Whether or not they
will grow true to seed is the point I was making.


"Successful" would really be in the eyes of the beholder. The plant is
successful if, as you said, it makes viable seed. It doesn't give a hoot
whether we find it edible or pretty. Or, does it? There's a fascinating book
called "The Botany of Desire", by Michael Pollan. It suggests that although
we think we're controlling things when we create new hybrids, it may be the
other way around. We find plant variations which please us, and then, we
provide optimal conditions for them to prosper. Who is being trained?

"Wild" Pumpkin Vine Question
 

Elaine wrote:
OK lets say this is the only pumpkin or squash around in the area for
pollination purposes and the vine has male and female blooms which the bees
pollinate. Wouldn't it go back to whatever it's "parent" was?

Answer: maybe. The seedling will NOT produce seed that is true to type
unless the seed ITSELF was produced in the absence of another variety
of squash. So, the seed will produce fruit like the parent if no
othe squash was present at the time it was originally pollinated. If
there were no other varieties present then it would indeed "go back" to
it's original type.

I know that gourds are like that (other than they are pollinated by moths at
night). If you are growing one type of gourd you cannot grow another type
within several miles of each other due to cross-pollination and end up with
whatever weirdo.

Squash, pumpkins and gourds are all in the same family and can
pollinate each other. When this happens the fruit will be as expected
(true-to-type) but the seeds, if planted, will not produce true-to-type
squash. It will be a squash, for sure, but it will not be the named
variety that you started with. It will reflect the grab bag of genetic
material that the varieties involved were originally bred from and
every seedling could be as different from each other as they are from
the original variety.

If you are not growing for seed then there is no need to be worried
about such things. If seed production is the goal, however, care must
be taken to avoid accidental pollinations.