Tetsukabuto Squash (Cucurbita maxima x Cucurbita moschata). This is an interspecific hybrid, like when a female horse and a male donkey (two different species) make a mule, or a zebra and a pony make a zony, or a lion and tiger making a liger. This doesn't happen very often in nature! These examples aside, most separate species are not able to successfully mate, and when they do, as in the case with all of these examples (except one documented case with the liger), their offspring are often sterile and unable to have their own offspring due to their mismatched chromosome counts. Anyways, this sterile cross between the Butternut species and the Kabocha species of squash was made in Japan and was popularized in Brazil in the 1960s. It has promise as a disease- and pest-resistant food crop and root stock for other cucurbits. It was given to me by my hometown farmer friend, Bryan Connolly, who wrote a great article about his NE-SARE grant-funded Tetsukabuto trials for nofamass.org. #tetsukabuto #interspecifichybrids #interspecificcross #hybridsquash #bryanconnolly (at S. W. P)
