Our aehobak project in year four. It’s starting to get pretty wild and exciting, seeing different combinations of fruit shapes, colors and quality as well as growth habit. 애호박 is a Korean type of Cucurbita moschata, eaten as a young summer squash. 풋호박 is similar, a moschata eaten as a green pumpkin. We basically tried a bunch of different combinations, between different moschata types for disease resistance and compact vines, as well as some inter species crosses with some pepo varieties for a bushier nature. We were interested in maintaining the eating quality that makes these types of squash so dense and flavorful when young, while seeing how much we could potentially increase yields, carotenoid content, and perhaps even edibility/storage when fully mature (most aehobak tend to be stringy and watery when mature). We are also factoring in leaf edibility since 호박잎 is commonly used as well. After some initial crosses between aehobak varieties and others, we both selfed and crossed those offspring and then last year let them also open pollinate. So basically I guess we threw a lot of spaghetti at the wall and then just kept throwing spaghetti 🤔. We’ll see how this progresses, and welcome you to give us updates if you’re part of our collective trials this season! We are highlighting all types of summer squash and gourds next month as part of our Seed Stewards program, so tune in for all things cucurbit!