I want to cross it next year with my 612 Ammer 14 giant pumpkin to get a thicker wall and to scale up weight.

This post was edited by acorneti on Mon, Dec 15, 14 at 13:39

Your Orange "Blue" Hubbard is gorgeous! How much did it weigh??? How did it taste? Did it keep the Blue's nuttiness/sweetness? How was the texture?

I plan to grow lots of Blue Hubbards this 2015 season. My first goal is to ultimately be able to get huge squashes to grow reliably from seed. After that, I had hoped to get future Blues to "take" some of the red color from my Golden Hubbard without sacrificing their huge size but now it seems from what you wrote that they won't.

But from what you've posted, there is still hope. :-)

When I get ready to introduce color into my Blues, I can use the Boston Marrow and eventually grow out and stabilize seed which will reliably produce a harvest of huge squashes which have the size, flavor, sweetness and nuttiness of the Blues AND which will have the coloring of the Boston Marrow.

I can see that this is going to take me years to do. (Don't know if I'll live that long. LOL!) For this coming year, I think I will concentrate on growing HUGE Blue Hubbards. Once I get those seeds to stabilize, then I can try adding in some red coloring waaaay down the road. :-).

I know that Blues have the ability to grow beyond 40 lbs. The grocery store near here had a few Blues which topped 50-60 lbs. ( I asked for some of the seeds but they had already been trashed when they cut those squashes down into manageable pieces).

Imagine if every single Blue Hubbard vine grew a 50lb squash! What a reliable food source that would be each winter.

This was the first 'Blue' fruit on the plant, which pollinated that Boston Marrow above. I did not put it onto the scales, but it might have weighed around 70 to 75#.

Although this fruit was 25" long and 13" wide, flesh was best and very nutty. I do not really like that word nutty, since it is used in nearly every catalog for most varieties, which taste rather dull.
This Blueôs flesh is more egg yolk yellow then orange and not too juicy under the very hard skin.
Dear BreaHouston, when you manage to create the wonder of a red or orange NE Blue Hubbard squash, you always will have that hard skin.
But NE Blue has the largest foliage with enormous growing space - similar to Atlatic Giant plants. And so we would like to use that capacity to produce larger fruits.
I will only breed my largest fruit in 2015, and I will try to pollinate some fruits with my AG 612, which also had 4 lobes.
I must admit. that I have brushed the flower of this 70#-Blue with a male flower of 612ôs mother plant, so we now see a huge Blue with AG-xenia...and F1 might be a very huge NE Blue Hubbard of some hundred lbs. when self pollinated.
But F2 would bring shrunk fruits with around 30% lesser weight as F1. And so I must pollinate some F1 fruits with the 612 to max out the dinosaurôs fodder.

...what a cavity...

I could not open with the knife this hard shelled fruit from the NE Blue plant, which was pollinated by Cinderella.
Dear BreaHouston, you really can not cross red onto the blue color of NE Blue!

I love the thickness of the flesh of that Blue Hubbard you bred! (4th photo from the top). Sounds like it's flavor and texture stayed true to what the Blue Hubbards are famous for. I've eaten a lot of winter squash in my time, but Blue Hubbard is hands down the winner every time, especially when slow-baked in the oven so that it's sugars can carmelize a bit.

What is your 612? (A Hubbard or a pumpkin?), Why do you call it "612"? Is it a stabilized breed now? I am in awe of you, that you can produce such a massive Hubbard as in that photo. You are accomplishing what I am only dreaming about doing. I can't wait until Spring and start the growing season!!! To stabilize and create a new Blue Hubbard strain which will only produce huge, 100lb +/- squashes is a worthy goal, in my book. Can't wait to see how my efforts compare with your own. :-)

I am glad you showed me how your Blue Hubbards looked after you crossed them with the red Cinderella. I was thinking that red striping might occur, but it looks as if it doesn't. None of the Cinderella's beauty came through and you are right, they do look like "trash". Did you ever get them open to taste them?

The cavity of the squash in the 4 photo from the top is amazing. Just look at the depth of that flesh! THAT'S what I want to see happen with my own breeding efforts. I want a small seed cavity and lots of thick flesh which keeps all of the flavor and sweetness that Blues are famous for.
The more you show me, the more I realize how much I still have to learn. But I have time to learn what I need to know before Spring. :-)

Under the patisson panache 'Jaune et Vert' scallop squash with a diameter of 7" you can see the 278 kg or 612 lbs. weighing C. maxima 'Atlantic Giant' or AG 612 Ammer 14 grown in the year 2014.
This fruit is the frist of my indreeding line from the best AG ever...with many hundreds of 1000 to 2000 lbs. weighing fruits and some world records in itôs offspring.
This only grandmother was the 1385.5 Jutras 07 grown in Rhode Island.
I have to admit that the picture with the thick flesh of my largest NE Blue was made after a high shoulder cut and not the equatorial cut. Here at the beginning of the very long seed cavity you canôt see the thickness like it is in the middle of the fruitôs length (equator).
Now this huge NE Blue was pollinated by an Atlantic Giant, you know. And you can see the light pink streaks at the large ground spot on the picture with the high shoulder cut.
F1 for sure will develop fruits of more then 100#...I think that the average will be around 180# with outlier of more then 250#.
But all of these fruits will be no true NE Blues anymore!
Because the grower Symmes developed this Hubbard squash for Gregory more then 100 years ago, I would like to name my new variety Cucurbita maxima fusiformis 'Ammerôs Blue Symmes Giant'.
The botanical term of 'fusiformis' is my invention and will take off the term Hubbard. Fusiformis commonly is used in medicine and physiology for the shape of great muscles with neck and boat tail.

This post was edited by acorneti on Wed, Dec 31, 14 at 7:20

I don't think it matters if your "Ammers Blue Symmes Giant" can be considered a "true" Blue Hub or not in the eyes of biology. If you accomplished your goal(s) of creating a giant Blue Hub-type squash that has kept the best eating qualities and storage capabilities which Blue Hubs are famous for, then you have, indeed, created a fantastic squash and folks are going to want to grow it.

Scientists are the ones who nit-pic over names and catagories. Us regular folks, however, usually go by the saying "if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck,... must be a duck". Or must be something just as good ...or even better... than a duck.

Cucurbita Maxima fusiformis. I like that. It is a good play on words for your new squash breed. :-). That had to take a lot of thought to come up with that.

If I correctly read what you wrote, then this is an F1 hybrid. How many generations (aproximately) do you think you will need to breed before the seed becomes stabalized?

Even though I didn't take into account that your 4th photo showed a squash cut at the end instead of through it's equator, it is still a very thick squash with a smaller seed cavity. My original "Awe" still stands. :-)

Hi folky Brea, I thought you would grow somewhere between northern New Mexico and Montana, as you indicated hardiness zone 4b.
But now I see zone 10, what might be southern California.
Would you like to try one of my C. moschata varieties then?
I have bred a variety here in Bavaria, which needs 140 days and never can mature here in zone 6. This variety has mother C. moschata 'Bambina Gigante' and father C. moschata 'Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck'. Mother variety normally is dark green, but this bright pollinator provoked the darkest green possible or nearly black. Fruits shape is a 90ð arch or 45ð+45ð bows close together, as you can see at the fruit left on this picture. I named this variety C. moschata 'Arco di Monaco', because our capital city of Bavaria is Munich, which is called Monaco in Italian...and the mother fruit comes from Italy.

Arco di Monaco was bred in 2012 and then upgraded with recurrent selection methods for two years.
But the New England Hub x Atlantic Giant I did this year 2014, and you see the light pink in the background through xenia (the influence of pollen onto the growing motherôs fruit) only.
F1 of my Blue Symmes Giant you might do in 2015, if you want. You would have to grow half a dozen of plants at least to see the spectrum of the genetical potential and select then.
Weight of Arco di Monaco now is around 40#.

This post was edited by acorneti on Wed, Dec 31, 14 at 12:45

I am at the top of central Massachusetts, about 2 miles or less away from the New Hampshire border. Even though I live in Massachusetts, the zone I am in is the colder New Hampshire zone. According to maps I've seen, the bottom of New Hampshire is zone 4b.

That is why I am going to start my Blue Hubbards indoors early in the spring. I will use larger biodegradable containers to give them the extra room their roots will need to keep from getting bound up. Then I'll lay sheets of black plastic on the raised beds. I also plan to use row covers. (Anything to conserve the soil's warmth).

At the start of June I'll be planting them into the raised beds, pots and all, so as not to disturb the roots. Then I'll cover them with row covers which will be opened at dawn and closed at dusk. I plan to use drip watering hoses so the foliage won't get wet, which will cut down on diseases.

I don't know if my zone is any better than where you are. If you think it is, I'll be glad to grow out something for you.

Think about it and let me know. :-)

Meanwhile, Happy New Year to you and your family! Today is New Years eve here in the USA. My family and I are going out for an early supper celebration and then we plan to get home before the drunk drivers hit the streets!

Have a safe and wonderful holiday!