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Western PA

Please share your Observations, Ideas, or Theories you have on the seeds within your pumpkins...

Do you feel all seeds are created equal?

Is this you? Genetics are Genetics and all seeds within a fruit have the same growth potential?

If an 1885 can grow a absolutely beautiful deep orange pumpkin with near perfect shiny skin in one instance. Then push out a dirty off-white fruit full of growth cracks. Those are two extreme differences from the same seed when it comes to color & skin tone. If this can occur within the same seed then why can't seeds within that same fruit have different growth potential for size?

What are your thoughts on this and what do you think would be a proper way to test the theory on the potential of a golden seed or really any potential growth differences (good or bad) from the seeds of the same fruit?

1/27/2023 7:17:30 PM

Grittyville, WA

It all comes down to the punnet square/ mendelian inheritance of genes. A selfed lineage x a selfed lineage (like the genetic makeup of the 2145 Mcmullen) may give more consistently goid results and this might boost the average success of that seed by a couple hundred pounds.

1/28/2023 7:40:21 AM

Grittyville, WA

good

1/28/2023 7:40:45 AM

Syracuse, NY

Well, see, right there in LK's typo - You said 'golden' seed and LK said 'g o i d', which at first I thought was 'gold'; Then, he made his correction;
In checking, to joke at Gritty about 'i and o are right next to each other and it's okayyyy, buddy', it's that LITTLE of a difference that can make ALL the difference and even 'l' as in 'golden' is in the same close trio of letters on the keyboard, corresponding, perhaps in my own crazy weigh of seeing it, to random, but nearby, similar seeds in a pumpkin.
Golden/goid/good - they're mostly gonna have similar characteristics butt only one of that few will be the best;

However, then there's this 2365 Wolf that has come along, lol.
2006, 2080, 2137.5, 2359.5, 2493, 2537, 2554
Those are SEVEN Golden Seeds' results, plus the COMMENDABLE others, on down through.

I love this: 'Then push out a dirty off-white fruit full of growth cracks.'
Eeewww!!!
Lol in that I filmed that weighoff of the 2200 Wolf and it was SUCH an impressive fruit, regardless, and I totally agree with 'If an 1885 can grow a absolute...' YUP!
Every crossing changes the seeds involved and the result is always somehow different from the original, although maybe imperceptibly so; To ME, NO expert and NO HH, it is like a Rubik's Cube left on a table at a party - each handler of it will leave it changed to a new pattern;
Occasionally, it will end up as I suppose a brand new one is -
with every side of just one color. Check the lable, if any. It might say 2365. eg

1/28/2023 11:55:23 AM

Syracuse, NY

label eg

1/28/2023 12:46:51 PM

Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada

Not all seeds are created equal. The problem is that not all of the siblings from within a pumpkin are all grown out and given the same chance to know which is the best one. So in a way one is as good as another because the potential of all is equally unknown. That said, the genetics are heterozygous and there are a lot of genes segregating that will make the potential of one seed from a fruit different from another seed from the same pumpkin. Selfing reduces heterozygosity by 50% per generation, but selfing a heterozygous plant is still going to give you lots of segregation. It takes at least a few generations of selfing to really stabilize a line.

2/3/2023 1:00:58 AM

Colorado

Every seed from a pumpkin is a result off shuffling of the deck from each parents genetic cards. The deck has its unique cards not a 52 known standard. Each seed is a unique hand. We dont know how many cards are in the deck to contribute to size'color shape nor whats dominant or recessive. Theres also epigenetic factors in play. So to answer your question I dont feel all seeds are equal and have no way of quantifying how different they are.I expect to get a range of traits from a given seed stock.

2/8/2023 9:15:39 PM

New Jersey

My belief is that soil and weather factor in the most... Practically every seed now has some great genetics.. Mr. Geddes showed this last yr taking a 300lb seed that had a lot of great genetics in it... And grew a 1ton+ pumpkin...

4/8/2023 5:20:22 PM