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Nashville, TN

Another of a long list of questions: If I end up selfing over 1/2 of my different GP varieties - and due to my exceptional soil/growing conditions (I've been successfully Organic gardening for YEARS - have premo conditions and I research things heavily...) What if I end up getting a TN state record GP this year....

Would those selfed seeds be valuable? Or do I take 1-2 more seasons proving the consistancies of the strains and selfing crosses to purify? Then let my kids sell them?

2/28/2005 9:43:46 AM

Knopp, Germany

Value depends on what a grower is looking for, i.e., color, shape, thickness of walls, heat resistance, etc. As an example, I don't mind an AG that isn't orange, as long as it weighs heavy to the chart. What makes a seed valuable to me is consistent heavy producer. Now define consistant, this is again up to the individual grower, typically it takes at least 2 seasons of consistency (orange, heavy, whatever) before I would consider it to be of value. And I don't mean that you keep on crossing that seed to purify it even more, I mean the same seed producing consistently over a couple of years.

2/28/2005 9:52:50 AM

Knopp, Germany

Please note so that I am not misunderstood. If you did self the seeds to purify the strain and traits, and grew a nice pumpkin, then the seeds from that pumpkin would still have to be proven over a 2 year period again for me to consider them to be vaulable.

2/28/2005 9:57:15 AM

Hilpoltstein, Bavaria, Germany

ditto, Owen

btw, I consider other seeds valuable (lol) but it's always the personal opinion of the grower...

2/28/2005 10:19:00 AM

Waquoit Mass

number one if you become the tenn champ you should make a post thanking all the growers who made this what it is today.and the fact you can get all this info. number two selling seeds are you in it for the cash my how things have changed . back to pumpkin etiquette again lol

2/28/2005 10:53:25 AM

Indiana

these things are a whole different beast. I dont think with the disease pressure in the southern states that you can go that big only on organics. I think it can work pretty good farther north, but if you talk to the guys from Georgia, I am sure they will tell you no way. The strains we grow have almost no disease resistance at all.

Dwaine Gipe has a heck of a setup in PA, that is 100% organic. You may want to contact him.

As for the genetics, you most likely dont have the caliber of seeds we use here unless you got seeds from someone on this site. Several 1 generation self seeds have done well. I believe we are yet to have a 2nd generation seed that was selfed go over 1000. Was the 1056.5 Ruff off a 2 gen x self seed I thought it was just 1? Going off memory here, so someone correct me if I go wrong.

Its very hard to get a good seed when you grow just a few plants and self. I have 200 plants, and sometimes what I do isnt even enough to get a good pure line to work with. 10-950.4 boyton's wasnt enough to find what I was looking for out of that one. Ended up scrapping that idea. To do it right one needs to look at population genetics and self several hundred if not all of the seeds from a particular fruit.

Tom Beachy

2/28/2005 10:54:26 AM

Waquoit Mass

what happened to the science project

2/28/2005 11:23:48 AM

Appalachian Mtns.

You ain't gettin' there before I do!

2/28/2005 11:27:56 AM