Hi all, I have a quick question; I am debating whether or not to save the seeds from this years butternut squash plants and sow them next year. I understand that butternut squash rely on open pollination and if there are other varieties of the same species around, it may lead to a cross pollination which would come out in the plants the following year, were they to be started from those seeds. So, my dillemma is this; I do not believe any of the neighbours in my area have grown butternut squash but of course I cannot be 100% sure. The bees very kindly pollinated all my squash this year and I didn't do any by hand, so if a neighbour were to have a squash plant and the same bee visited both it and mine, then I could have a problem. I don't want to plant something and then realise too late in the season that it is some sort of weird hybrid. Thoughts? Cheers, Fergus
Yes, squash cross-pollinate within the species. Butternut is a cultivar of Cucurbita moschata and will cross-pollinate with other cultivars within this species. Check on the Net what other cultivars belong to Cucurbita moschata and evaluate the probability of them being grown in your close neighbourhood.
Thanks Sundrop. I think I will just roast and salt the seeds. Unfortunately it is hard to know what others around here have planted so, I am not going to take the chance. I don't want to put all that work in next year and then have some weird crop :)
