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Location

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Date Posted

Saint Marys, PA

2nd year grower here. So....I've acquired seeds from several pumpkins and plan to grow 1 or 2 plants. How do I pick which seeds will be the males and which will be the females? I've read in other threads that the male usually produces the color. Was wondering if you guys/girls agree. Also, I'm sure this is a stupid question but why not just use the male and female from the same plant? Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

1/22/2014 10:13:00 AM

Western NY

Using the pollen from the same plant is fine. I don't think it has necessarily been proven which side has more influence in the color of the offspring.

Although I sometimes try to shoot for a particular cross, when the time comes, if a plant is a dud, I will avoid using it as a pollinator, and lean on the ones that are more vigorous.

1/22/2014 11:24:28 AM

Central Minnesota

Amen to what Andy W said. This is the same reason I do not harvest seeds out of all my pumpkins. Despite how much I like some of my crosses on paper, if there are characteristics I do not like from the plant or pumpkin, I do not harvest the seeds.

1/22/2014 11:28:32 AM

Saint Marys, PA

Thanks for the responses. So basically, when it comes time to pollinate, I should be looking to use the most aggressive plant as the male and cross it with a female from the second most aggressive plant.

1/22/2014 11:51:09 AM

Piqua, Ohio

Controlled crosses are great if you'll be growing the seeds, and trying to improve genetics, but if you don't want to harvest and grow your seeds it doesn't really matter. I try using males from fruit that went heavy and plant characteristics I'm looking for.

1/22/2014 1:28:03 PM

Germany

You grow 2 plants?...you probably want to grow two pumpkins, and therefore you might consider the crosses A x B and B x A (sometimes a fruit doesn´t produce viable seeds, and then you´ll have the seeds of the reverse cross in the other fruit), and if one of them cannot be made (because of availability problem of males) you are limited to a x self in case of the one or the other pumpkin.

Only if one out of the two plants turns out to be complete crap, then I would suggest to use the better plant as the pollinator only. (Strong plant A, weak plant B...crosses A x self and B x A).

1/22/2014 4:21:15 PM

Hanson Ma

If you can grow 2 pants definitely do a x b and b x a cross and you can pollinate self crosses on the same plant and then choose your best grower.

1/22/2014 5:56:15 PM

Weedville,pa

Hi jeff, good to see another elk county grower here! Email me sometime, it would be nice to meet up with another local grower. frank_bouch11@hotmail.com

1/22/2014 7:12:14 PM

Elk County, PA

What he said ^

1/22/2014 10:26:41 PM