Hybrid Vigor

I believe a some people on this list misunderstand the concept of hybrid
vigor.

They believe crossing the pollen from one large pumpkin plant with a female
flower from an other large pumpkin plant will result in something greater
than the result of two large pumpkin plants crossing. While this might be
an fun and interesting way of selecting for large pumpkin genes, it does
not create anything even remotely aproaching the kind of results which come
from hybridization - the reason for intentional crossing.

Example of hybrid vigor in sweet corn:  Silver Queen  X  Country Gentleman 

Silver Queen has 25 sugar genes and Country Gentleman has 31 sugar genes.

If you cross them - take the pollen from one and place it upon the ear of
the other -
then save the seed and plant it out the next year - you obtain a brand new
variety of corn that has the equivalent sweetness of a 50 sugar gene ear of
corn.  If you save seed from this hybrid, plant it out the next season,
you'll obtain a wide variety of corn ears with sugars that range anywhere
from 25-31.

Now lets imagine the same with pumpkins.

Chirs Andersen grew two pumpkin plants.  One was a Greer 1006 and the other
a Zeher 1061.  He crossed the flowers of these two plants and won the 1997
championship with a 996 lb pumpkin. 

The seed from Andersen 996 can certainly be expected to produce really big
pumpkins, if given a great deal of TLC.  It has a wonderful genetic
background, but most importantly it came from the biggest competition
pumpkin of the season.  There were probably many other 1006X1061 crosses,
however, none as big.  So it should be a greater advantage to grow the seed
of 996 Andersen over any other seed currently available. 

However, NO ONE SHOULD EXPECT Andersen 996 TO PRODUCE A PUMPKIN IN THE
1,250 lb TO 1,500 lb RANGE, as if it were expressing hybrid vigor.

As far as crossing big pumpkin plants, if someone had crossed one Zeher
1061 plant with another Zeher 1061 plant (which is not the same as self
pollination, using flowers from the same plant) the chances of obtaining a
huge pumpkin would be better than crossing Zeher 1061 with a smaller
pumpkin plant, be it Greer 1006 or Joe Smow 246. This is selection. And,
your chances here are mostly dependant upon good soil, good weather, good
gardening and GOOD LUCK.

If you are selecting for larger pumpkins one should never intentionally
introduce the genes of a smaller pumpkin. However, if you've a female
flower and no other male flowers available to pollinate it, and you really
want something to place on your front porch, pollinating with the a hubbard
squash will work as well.

To cross a Zeher 1061 with a Zeher 1061 means you must have a lot of Zeher
1061 seed to assure you've two plants at maturity to cross.  And, this is
not how the competition pumpkin growers' network works.  Presently growers
of huge pumpkins only disburse a single seed to an other grower.  

Again it is scientifically impossible to obtain hybrid vigor by crossing
plants of the same variety.  It is even doubtful if hybrid vigor is present
when crossing plants of a similar variety like Atlantic Giant and Show
King.

Hybrid vigor is the result of crossing two distinctly different varieties
of the same species, the more different the variety the greater the vigor.

Criss crossing plants of the same variety WILL give you greater diversity
and is always healthy for the long term preservation of genetic material
available in a single variety. 

Michael in Akron
mcohill@neo.lrun.com
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