"lwhaley" wrote in
oups.com:

What this all means is that your brother is probably right.
Your vine will produce something but you don't know what.
I will likely be green like your bro said and may not be
good for anything other than an autumn display. In any
case, you can keep the vine around as an experiment if you
are curious. If you want or expect actual pumpkins then
you would destroy it.

ok, WHY would it likely be green? i've grown maybe 30 or 40
volunteer pumpkins in my life and never once have i ended up
with green pumpkins. yellow ones, striped ones, lots of orange
ones. no green ones except those that didn't ripen.
i would *expect* any pumpkin seed that was in a birdseed mix
to be from a field type pumpkin anyway, so, edible but very
low in sugar, fibrous & watery. it's parents were most likely
developed for livestock feed, not human consumption (which
doesn't make it inedible, just not as tasty & easy to use as a
sugar pumpkin, which is a fairly recent development)
lee
--
"Fascism would be better described as corporatism,
since it is marriage between the state and business"
- Benito Mussolini

"enigma" wrote in message
. ..
"lwhaley" wrote in
oups.com:

What this all means is that your brother is probably right.
Your vine will produce something but you don't know what.
I will likely be green like your bro said and may not be
good for anything other than an autumn display. In any
case, you can keep the vine around as an experiment if you
are curious. If you want or expect actual pumpkins then
you would destroy it.

ok, WHY would it likely be green?

Equally good question: Why would it NOT be green? Pumpkins have been
successfully cross-pollinated with other types of squash. Obviously, this is
less likely to be done by bees than by people experimenting in a closed
greenhouse, but you shouldn't suggest that it's impossible.

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.

"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?

Oh my gosh I just realized this experiment may backfire on me. I could get
cross-pollination of birdhouse gourds x pumpkins! Oh well I planted to many
gourd seeds anyway (10 plants-each plant should make 20 gourds). The birds
probably wont care what their houses look like

If will be fun to see what happens and I will past it along later if anyone
is interested in the results.

Elaine

"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in message
...
"enigma" wrote in message
. ..
"lwhaley" wrote in
oups.com:

What this all means is that your brother is probably right.
Your vine will produce something but you don't know what.
I will likely be green like your bro said and may not be
good for anything other than an autumn display. In any
case, you can keep the vine around as an experiment if you
are curious. If you want or expect actual pumpkins then
you would destroy it.

ok, WHY would it likely be green?

Equally good question: Why would it NOT be green? Pumpkins have been
successfully cross-pollinated with other types of squash. Obviously, this
is less likely to be done by bees than by people experimenting in a closed
greenhouse, but you shouldn't suggest that it's impossible.