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Covington, WA

Has anyone else noticed this or am I delerious? Squash seeds from solid green fruit seem to throw only green, orange, or less common, white fruit. If you grew a 900.8 Lyons seed you would expect to get a green or an orange fruit. If you grew a 723 Bobier you could get anything including a mix of colors. Squash just don't seem to throw squmpkins, they are either squash or pumpkins. Perhaps someone with a little more knoweledge of genetics can clue me in as to why this seems to be the case. Perhaps we can take advantage of this to help clean up the lines in AG's. Lets face it, heavy is not the only issue for most growers. We want squash that look like squash and pumpkins that look like pumpkins, and most of us would rather not grow the dog vomit mix of color fruit, but they get so darn big it's hard not to plant one of those seeds if you have it. If I'm wrong about this let me know, but I think perhaps this could be helpful if my observation is correct.

2/21/2004 1:23:53 PM

Norton, MA

Ya, I never noticed that before. Hmmmmmm? Alex.

2/21/2004 3:16:40 PM

Choctaw, OK

I was once told, the more gene pairs a certain trait has, the more environmentally influenced it is. It has been suspected that human eye color has 8 genes pairs. This means two parents with blue eyes could very well have children that dont have blue eyes. I dont think human eye color is environmentally influenced, however, i think pumpkin and squash color can be (environment influenced) along with the combination of many gene paris for skin pigment...I argue maybe that's part of what we have seen....its just a crazy idea that makes some sense to me for this whole color thing in AG's.

Simplified version, 4 gene pairs and 8 alleles (using human eye color as example):

AABBCCDD = Dark Brown (8 contributing alleles)
AABBCCDd = Med Brown (7 Contributing alleles)
AABBCcDc = Light brown (6)
AABbCcDd = Hazel (5)
aaBBCcDd = Grey (4)
AaBbCcdd = Green (3)
aaBBccdd = Dark Blue (2)
Aabbccdd = Med Blue (1)
aabbccdd = Light blue (no contributing alleles)

Any combination of the contributing alleles can cause a certain pigment to be expressed more than another. This shows that parents with blue eyes can have children that dont have blue eyes. Parents with the Dark Blue (2 contributing alleles) might pass on both contributing alleles and end up with a child that has 4 contributing alleles and get a grey/hazel eye color.

2/22/2004 5:15:20 PM

Choctaw, OK

Cont...

I like to think of pumpkin color this way. How do you explain how sometimes if two light colored fruit are crossed that you sometimes end up with a nice colored fruit in the offspring? I also think the environment influences certain colors to be expressed on lighter colored fruit (i.e. the 723 going green).

I have noticed sunlight can make orange fruit more orange and green fruit more brown. Thats also environment influence. I have observed orange tarps used for shade decrease the amount of green on a (white) fruit when it matures, or alteast slows it down.

I crossed a squash (596* Johnson 99) with the 788 wentzell 99 that grew my 762 in 2000. The 596* has some mutations and the fruit were sometimes connected to the side vine at the node. I happened to pollinate one of these with the 788 and it set. The fruit got to about 40-50 lbs and split. I grew a seed from this small squash and i grew a 572.5 lb uow pumpkin in 2002. Fruit was white as a ghost and the plant didnt have any problems. I did have problems with seeds in the blossom, thats it.


Non of this takes into account Epistasis, which is the masking or hiding by one gene (or gene pair) of another gene pair. Example would be Hair color in humans. You might have a certain phenotype that would express brown hair, but you inherited the albino trait that masks that phenotype. If you have ever met someone with very white hair, thats a gene that masks all other genes that would have given you brown, black, red, or blonde hair.

Color in these fruit is probably much more complicated than what i have explained. And mostly likely the skin pigment probably isnt dertermined in the way I proposed. Its just an idea that might help make sense of the variance that occurs. There is even difference in "green" color for squash.


Case

2/22/2004 5:15:38 PM

mcminnville oregon

could you have a white fruit to pollinate at 10' , and another green fruit to pollinte at 13' and yet another orange fruit at 15', or would all the flowers/fruit be the same?????

2/29/2004 10:52:44 PM