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Old May 26, 2015   #64
jmsieglaff
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Southern WI
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Steve,

What disease pressures do you have in Florida summer? Or is it more just heat related? Insect related?

We get powdery mildew in the later part of summer every year here in Wisconsin, especially by early August with warm days and longer, cooler nights at that point. Occasionally SVB issues as well, Tatume will root at nodes, which helps it survive that attack, although my vertical growing negates that advantage. I don't grow a ton of squash, so I do try to screen plants nightly and destroy any eggs if they show up.

As far as pollination, I'd hand pollinate them if possible, which would be the best way to preserve the genetics unique to the cross (in case of neighboring C. Pepo pollen coming in on pollinators) (and in this slightly odd case) the uniqueness of each F1 since there is variability in the F1 (which from my understanding of genetics is typically not the case, F1 generation is often uniform). If not you're not interesting in save seeds and growing subsequent generations, then it doesn't matter. But if you want to, go for it, but don't feel compelled. I will plan on saving seeds from each F1 and growing the F2 of the plant that I find suits my goals the best in 2016.

Monty's advantage of a greenhouse allows him to do two generations in a year (I suppose you could as well being in Florida), but in Wisconsin I don't think it would be enough time to mature the second generation of seed without a greenhouse.

Justin

Last edited by jmsieglaff; May 26, 2015 at 10:55 PM.
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