Supermarket Squash

[Fat Bob]

I made some squash and chilli soup a few weeks ago using a shop-bought Butternut and took a handful of seeds, wiped off the gunk and planted them in 3" pots of compost and they have all germinated into fat little seedlings.

Is there anything intrinsically wrong with this practice?

Will they fruit? - or have people in white coats done things to prevent this?

[jimbojetset]

dunno, i did the same thing last year and strangely non of them fruited, they were right next to the shop bought seeds who merrily fruited away, but could be just coincidence, sorry to be a downer!

[snohare]

Will they fruit? - or have people in white coats done things to prevent this?

I sincerely hope they will, I am doing the same thing right now !
It's not the men in white coats you want to watch out for, it's the men in Armani suits that employ them. I can tell you that despite them the seed is not "Terminator" seed - genetically modified to be sterile - but then you knew that because of all the hoo hurrah about not allowing genetically modified organisms into the UK anyway, didn't you - not to mention, you have seedlings ! (Always a good sign for viable seed I find. The only sign other than lack of mould I go by.)
If it is an F1 variety then what the seed produces may be nothing like the parent plant, it will resemble a more distant ancestor, and may not grow nearly as fast as it will not have "hybrid vigour". Add to that the fact that they are probably grown under glass, and you may have the reason why the growing season where you are might not be enough for the job.
Me, I am putting all my squash seeds into pots in a heated propogator, just to speed them along.

[Bren In Pots]

I got two squashes from each supermarket saved seed plant the other year

[hamsterqueen]

They certainly do when they are in my compost bin!
In fact I have had to stop putting the seeds from squash in the compost now

I let one grow a few years back and got a 4lb butternut from it.

[blackkitty]

They grow quite happily but I think that the problem may be a variety needing a longer growing season rather than anything more sinister. Most of the butternut seeds sold here are varieties that fruit quickly.

[hamsterqueen]

I di dfind that my home grown squash was much denser and fuller flavoured than teh original shop one. I put it down to the fact that the commercial ones are probably watered copiously and so grow more quickly?

[Fat Bob]

Ah right - all good info. Thanks.

I've just eaten a few slices of watermelon too. Ok, maybe not.

[MrsC]

Why not, I love to experiment with seeds bought from shops. What do they use as a growth inhibitor on produce anyway?

[Alice]

I think they'll do as well as any others for you Fat Bob. They might not come absolutely true to type - but the ones from the packets don't either - so go for it.

[SlugLobber]

I've done the same, sown some supermarket ones saved from over the winter. These are in addition to my shop bought seeds, though, to make sure I don't lose out - I likes me squash!

[Lavenderblue]

Well the thing with squash as i understand it is that it is very promiscuous. It pollinates with any other squashes that are growing near by. The cross-pollination thing makes it very hard for seeds to be true the following year. You might be lucky, you might not. I love my squashes too much to chance it so I always buy fresh seed each year.

[Fat Bob]

Well the thing with squash as i understand it is that it is very promiscuous. It pollinates with any other squashes that are growing near by. The cross-pollination thing makes it very hard for seeds to be true the following year. You might be lucky, you might not. I love my squashes too much to chance it so I always buy fresh seed each year.

I'm not really up to speed with the old 'F1', 'true', 'hybrid vigour' etc

Are F1's etc like pedigrees? - and then they get cross-pollinated with weaker varieties diluting the strain etc?

[Demeter]

I'm not really up to speed with the old 'F1', 'true', 'hybrid vigour' etc

Are F1's etc like pedigrees? - and then they get cross-pollinated with weaker varieties diluting the strain etc?

F1s are hybrids. For example if you had an F1 tomato variety - let's call it "Hildegaard" - it would have been very carefully produced by crossing two parent plants of different varieties - let's call them mama "Hildeblum" and papa "Kierkegaard". The purpose of doing this is because the plant breeders have discovered that this particular cross produces seeds with the best genetic properties of both parents - perhaps mama's flavour combined with papa's resistance to disease.

If you grow the seed into a plant and get your lovely, vigorous Hildegaard tomatoes, you might decide to save a few seeds and grow more Hildegaards for free next year. BUT it doesn't necessarily work out. The reason is that the seeds produced by the Hildegaard plant are not likely to have the same genetic mix as the Hildegaard itself. It might be the same ("true") or even better, but not necessarily. You might even end up with a rotten old Kierkeblum - mama's susceptibility to the first whiiff of blight combined with papa's insipid flavour - oh dear.

So growing from F1s might work, and you might get something true or nearly true to the parent plant - but there are no guarantees.

(All tomato varieties used in the making of this post were entirely fictional and are given for illustrative purposes only. Any resemblance to real varieties past or present is purely coincidental. The value of your tomato variety can go up or down, past performance is not an indication of future performance and the maturity value of your saved F1 seed is not guaranteed. Your tomato-growing success may be at risk if you do not keep up your fresh seed purchases. No tomatoes were harmed in the making of this post.)

[Lemon]

(All tomato varieties used in the making of this post were entirely fictional and are given for illustrative purposes only. Any resemblance to real varieties past or present is purely coincidental. The value of your tomato variety can go up or down, past performance is not an indication of future performance and the maturity value of your saved F1 seed is not guaranteed. Your tomato-growing success may be at risk if you do not keep up your fresh seed purchases. No tomatoes were harmed in the making of this post.)

brilliant!