From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Brownsville, MD

What’s the level of interest for a competition growing seeds that are 10+ years old?

1/1/2019 1:09:36 PM

Leerdam, The Netherlands

Interested!

1/1/2019 1:25:09 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

I’m in, we have a 1421.5 Stelts that I’ve saved for our new patch.

Also have some older Wallace, Daletas and others that deserve to be grown.

1/1/2019 5:06:08 PM

Italy

Last year I grew a 1381 Checkon 2010.
I crossed it with the 1625.5 Gantner and grew a 658lbs pumpkin in a 150sqft patch. It was a real aggressive plant, I really liked to grow it!

1/1/2019 5:26:33 PM

Syracuse, NY

this could also have a good impact on the seeds at-auction that could be used in such an endeavor; bring on the Relics!

1/1/2019 6:55:03 PM

Syracuse, NY

perhaps a bonus for every year of the seed's age back from 10 yrs. old, like
10 yrs. = major portion of the pot;
15 yrs. = major portion plus 5 'increments' of the pot, etc.
no worries of me winning, but, lots of incentive, there'd be! eg

1/1/2019 7:16:52 PM

Ithaca, NY

This would be really interesting from a genetics perspective. If a bunch of people grow older seed stock side-by-side with newer material we could estimate how much genetic progress has been made over the last decade.

1/2/2019 5:17:59 PM

Syracuse, NY

i just hope that being so early now this really lights up by perhaps mid-April or so and i have the house and garage cleaned so i can totally concentrate on seed-whispering my old seeds into life, lol---

1/5/2019 6:03:34 AM

Grittyville, WA

Were any 10+ year old seeds grown in 2018? If so, which seed/ grower would have been the winner in 2018?

I think a 10, 15, and 20 year contest would all be great. I’m up for it.

It would be great if you make it into a contest. If I do get a 15+ year old seed to germinate... I could probably grow it back to back or edge to edge with newer genetics.

1/5/2019 7:56:41 AM

Grittyville, WA

I know some folks have made crosses from old seeds in the past few years. I just don’t remember all the old ones off the top of my head. Perhaps someone could compile those results. Agteacher might be able to say if he thinks the older ones are any different than the new ones.

1/5/2019 8:01:16 AM

Ithaca, NY

It would be tough to compile those results in a way that would allow a proper comparison. In terms of genetics, what matters isn't how old a seed is, but rather, what cycle of selection it came from. Since giant pumpkin seeds can be saved for many years we have overlapping generations grown each year. Seed can be much older (have parents deeper in the pedigree) than other seed grown in the same year.

The fruit from the oldest seed in 2018 appears to be the 593 May 2018, which was apparently grown from the 600 Dill 1990. I'm not sure if I believe that.

1/5/2019 12:23:02 PM

Syracuse, NY

sorry, you couldn't have known without reading another post:

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/MsgBoard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=650303

...that i grew a 1007 Brown and a 783 Daletas that were both 17+ years old in '17 and '18, respectively, so perhaps a 1990 seed isn't a big stretch from there-on-backward. i'd be upset to hear that someone disbelieved that i grew a seed of a certain year or cross, so, be careful of that, as someone else might be, if they see this as well; my idea originally was to help get older seeds back into play and yes, SEE if anyone could or would grow a near-to or even greater-than WR pumpkin (or SQUASH?) from seeds that were = or > 10 years of age.
i do not believe that older seeds will fall by the weighside by much, if any, noticeable weight shortcomings, but that would be impossible to evaluate without the exact same crosses from 10+ years apart and it is also just my honest opinion, though i also believe that there ARE most-likely refinements to the genetic code from all of our efforts, but they are probably not as dramatic in such a short time frame as one might believe; my (annual, lol) intent is to grow the 706.5 Willemse and/or 962 (whichever might sprout, lol) and cross it into the 1756 Howell/Jolivette just for fun and to have yet another (ancient+present-day) cross to carry on with the 706.5 series from where it was left off at - i'd also be selfing the 706.5 or 962 or both if i even do any of it as was said >>> so many seeds to choose from! EG

1/5/2019 4:07:14 PM

Ithaca, NY

Cool that you were able to get very old seeds to grow. I didn't mean that I don't trust the grower. It's more that I don't trust the pedigree records, they are very error-prone. A lot can get mixed up when info is moved from the wieght-off site to the GPC info pages and then to pumpkinfanatic. Typos and inconsistent naming abound.

1/6/2019 12:39:47 PM

Syracuse, NY

gotcha - no sweat; and, thanks for the insight! later---eg

1/6/2019 8:20:13 PM

Grittyville, WA

Errors are common... I've gone through the data extensively and I've found every kind of error! As for seed life I think if they are in a consistently cold dry environment, they could last that long. But I doubt any would last more than a fifteen years on a shelf. On the other hand, there are probably lots of viable seeds at the bottom of a freezer somewhere! One of our local growers who probably had had pre -2000 tossed all their old seeds. Another still has their entire collection. I would have been willing to catalogue & store the collection of that other grower who tossed theirs...

1/7/2019 12:57:16 AM

Syracuse, NY

i'm looking forward (we have to, since our eyes point that weigh, lol) to going over my collection and deciding earlier than ever which ones i'll be trying in '19; i have to say that the 1007 and the 783 did not 'jump at the chance' to come to life and i was very lucky that they did, however sluggishly---probably because i was paying SUCH close attention to them, like watching the (analog) clock...eg

1/7/2019 3:15:38 AM

50 Acres

I'm thinking about rustling up some old and gold squash in the 10 yr + group. germination and time will tell.

1/7/2019 9:12:09 AM

Ontario

I have a few squash seeds from 2006 and 2007 that I'm going to try also

1/7/2019 8:11:53 PM