Could I plant store squash seeds?

[PunkRotten]

Hi,

I had a few Butternut squash and saved all the seeds. If I wanted to grow this next year could I use these or better to get commercial seeds?

[Gary350]

I get a lot of my seeds from grocery store vegetables.

3 years ago I planted butternut squash from grocery store squash, I have more squash that I could eat. Each plant grew 25 ft long with about 30 squash per plant.

I do the same thing with bell peppers, potatoes and other things.

[rainbowgardener]

If they germinate, they should be fine. I grow seeds from store veggies too or at least from my farmer's market veggies.

[Ohio Tiller]

I have had real good luck saving seeds from store boughts. Where I run into issues is those that have like three diffrent names to them instead of just butternut squash they might say Giant homelands best squash or some thing like that.
You can bet the longer the name the more hybreed it is and less likely it will grow into what you thought you planted.

[jal_ut]

The butternut seeds will likely be fine. They do not cross with the other common garden squash so they come true to type, not hybridized.

Save them, dry them, then try germinating a few to see if they germinate. If so you are good to go.

[PunkRotten]

Isn't there a bush type of Butternut squash? I'd probably prefer to grow those. Gary that is amazing 25 foot with 30 squash on each plant.

[jal_ut]

or is it that hybrid plants will still produce seeds that will germinate, but just won't fruit......gosh I forget right now.

Many of our common garden cultivars are hybrids. Yes, hybrids produce fruit.

The commercial hybrid seed is produced by carefully pollinating between two known varieties and the resulting fruit is predictable. However if you plant that seed from the hybrid, you may get some that resemble either parent or some other variant. Hybrids often exhibit what is called hybrid vigor. It simply means they grow faster and bigger, and perhaps produce more or larger fruit.

Last year I grew Hubbard and yellow bannana squash. These are both Cucurbita maxima. I saved some seed and planted a hill of that seed this year. I am getting some squash that isn't like either parent from this hill.

This year I also have a giant pumpkin, Hubbard and yellow banana, all C maxima, and I don't know if I will save seed. I could get some weird stuff if I did. Well maybe I will save some from the pumpkin?

All the summer squash and some pumpkins belong to the group Cucurbita pepo. These will all freely cross, so if you save seed from these where other varieties of the same species are grown, you never know what that seed will make. Yes, it will germinate and grow and yield and the resulting fruit may be good to eat, but it is not predictable. I am told that if you want a pure strain of this type of seed, you have to grow one type a mile from any other squash of the same species.

Butternut is Curcubita moschata and is the only one I have grown in that species. I have been saving seed for years and it comes true to type.

Lettuce seldom crosses, so save some lettuce seed.

[tomc]

Stupormarket butternut and hubbard squash will come true-to-type.

[applestar]

I like heirloom and open pollinated seeds and most of the catalogs I shop from have a good selection of those, but recently while searching for something, I stumbled on several seed company websites where almost everything they sell are hybrids (that they developed) and I was almost shocked to see the large number of hybrid butternut squash varieties represented.

So store bought butternut *could* be a hybrid and not come true from seeds.