Wow. That's pretty intense. Nice squash. Thanks! I didn't know some squash had a waxy coat, either.

Are there any hybrid experts out there? What if we crossed a Mini Red Turban squash with a blue-green squash like a Triamble? Would we get a mixture of the colors in an F1 hybrid--something like purple with some green thrown in? Would its color look a lot like the Musque de Providence squash above?

Dear Gringos, Musque de Provence! It´s named after a French region, which has more mediterranian climate - zone 8 and 9.

Would this be enough purple in your mind? But here you see only pink with brown and green at the rear (stalk end). Mother of this fruit you can´t buy, but I tell you the cross for it: C. maxima 'Turks Turban' x C. maxima 'Atlantic Giant' and F1 out of that x father Cucurbita ficifolia.

Did you say Cucurbita ficifolia? (AKA, Shark Fin Melon, Fig Leaf Gourd, Malabar Gourd, Chilacayote, Seven Year Melon, etc.)? I'm actually growing that (two plants). I didn't know it could cross with other squashes, but I'm very interested in learning more. So, it can pollinate C. maxima, eh? Cool. Does it have fertile seeds, and are they black, and did the father have black seeds? That's actually more interesting to me than purple squash. The squash doesn't look purple to me, though, but I admit I am a little colorblind. But if it looks purplish to someone, that still answers my question. Do you know any other species C. ficifolia will cross with?

It was easy for me to have pollinated several C. maxima by C. ficifolia. Seed is half not developed and half good with 30 very nice dark tan to brown, broad and with a whitish edge. Mothers seed was white. Fig-leaf gourd has black and broad seed. Half a dozen seed was not so good filled and one seed had already germed in the fruit. I have not enough seed for more seed tests, but I have many seed from C. maxima 'Pumpkin de Durban' pollinated by C. ficifolia, and I can see male flowers on 10 weeks old F1 test plants now. It is of interest to bring the insulin mediator chiro-inositol production from the shark fin melon onto orange-fleshed pumpkins, because normally it only is seen in white flesh of Cucumis melo inodorus group or Cucurbita ficifolia. By the way: I also have a pumpkin line from the cross of C. maxima kabocha group pollinated by Cucumis melo inodorus group. And I have crossed that line with C. moschata, so I have an intergeneric plus interspecific pumpkin fruit for climate zone 6 to 7, which matures much faster then C. moschata 'Musque de Provence', and has only a little green streaks with early harvest with 85 or 90 days and nice tan color a month afterripened on the windowsill. Storability is great and flesh is real thick with erythritol and chiro-inositol.

Awesome projects. How can you tell if the "the insulin mediator chiro-inositol production" passed successfully? And do you know if it's dominant or recessive?

You don´t have to think only catholic with that stupid pea-counter Mendel. The question for scientists now is, how much will the production of chiro-inositol reduced in F1, in F2... or will it stay in a true seed variety. I think NO. And so I will direct my attention to different xenia-fruits and F1, where the production of chiro-inositol is guaranteed completeky without doubt and without Mendel.

Is this purple—the Thai Kang Kob pumpkin—or is it more of a black? http://www.rareseeds.com/thai-kang-kob-pump/

Color change of Thai Kang Kob is bright green to deep green and finally nearly black depending on the light in which you watch. Maturing in storage brings a thick layer of transparent wax onto the skin, so it can be seen as greyish mirror or whitish similar to powdery mildew. This is the same in Thai Kang Kob and on the other Thai C. moschata 'Beung Karn', which I have crossed onto C. maximas with great success. These interspecific crosses fan out in all colors you can imagine and also some blackish true seed lines. But this dark pumpkins don´t produce so much wax, so they do not change to grey over the winter... they become more purple at the blossom end but stay dark green at the stalk´s end.