New Vining Summer Squash Project

So this past year we tried some new summer squash varieties, looking for vining habit so we can train vines on our cattle panel trellis, have good flavor, and good production--resistance to insects is always a plus.  We tried Tatume, Table Dainty, and lemon squash.  We like the flavor of all of them; but the lemon flavor edged out the other two.  The tatume was the most prolific vine, table dainty was vining but more restrained.  The lemon squash grew one large central vine/stalk--I'd call it semi-bush, which we tied up to the trellis it worked fine and it produced the most.

Over the past couple winters I've been reading some plant breeding books (like Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties by Carol Deppe) and I've decided to start my own squash breeding/crossing project.  Mainly to get a vining summer squash that might just be perfect and also for fun.

The breeding project I'm wanting the vining habit, vigor, and insect resistance of Tatume and the color, flavor, and production from the lemon squash (the flavor and production of Tatume wasn't bad--the lemon just a bit better).  So my plan this year (2014) is to cross lemon squash with tatume squash and save those seeds.  In 2015 I'll plant my F1 cross seeds and backcross to Tatume.  I'll plant out the F1 x Tatume cross in 2016 and begin selecting for vining habit and yellow squash color (which should be 1/4 of the plants in 2016).  I'll update and post some pictures over the course of the project.  Things probably won't be terribly exciting, at least until 2016 because the F1 that I will grow out in 2015 I suspect will all have Lemon squash habit (semi-bush) and yellow fruit (at least if my assumption of simple dominance is right and that bush is dominate to vine habit and yellow fruit dominate to green).  Over the years I hope to get a stable OP variety.  I'm sure I'll learn a lot along the way and probably need to shift gears as I go, but in the end I'm hoping to having a vigorous vining summer squash that produces good amounts of yellow squash with good flavor. At some point if I think I've got something good I'd be happy to share a few seeds.

What a neat experiment.  Of course, at 32 you have time to do anything your heart desires!!  Summer Sieglaff!

Ambitious plan! Hope it works out for you and that you have fun along the way.