Giant Squash (vs. Chickens)

This past summer I grew a few winter squash  (Cucurbita maxima) plants of the famous Atlantic Giant variety. The seed was first generation from 'Kings Seed' so my chances of producing an 800+ kg fruit were next to none. However, the plants did manage to produce two big squashes. I saved seed from the largest of these and will see if I can get even more gargantuan fruit next year.

Squashes are comprised of varieties and hybrids from about(?) four species of cucurbits: C. maxima, C pepo, C. moschata and C. mixta. To clarify: here I employ the term "winter squash' following North American usage, which divides squashes into two broad categories - summer and winter. Summer squashes are those harvested when immature including zucchini (forms of C. pepo), whereas winter squashes are those harvested after maturity, often entailing the hardening of their fruit's skin, and are commonly stored for eating during... winter.

Notice I have avoided the word 'pumpkin' here. So what is a pumpkin? Well, the term pumpkin is often used interchangeably with winter squash here in the Antipodes, but in the strict sense refers to particular varieties (apparently of all four species) of winter squash that typically have orange skins, creased longitudinally.

Atlantic Giant squash are commonly referred as 'pumpkins', and they well might be. Except, in the Wikipedia article on 'Big Max', another giant variety of winter squash, we gentle readers are informed that these giant 'hybrids' (scare quotes indicate I have no idea what  concept of hybrid is being used here - probably not between species) are not true pumpkins, but 'squash-like' pumpkins. Confused? You are not alone. If anyone out there has a more developed understanding of the situation, or cares enough to trawl the literature, feel free to set the record straight in the comments.

21.12.2011

26.01.2012

03.01.2012

Squash fruit are actually large berries. They are a special type distinguished by their hard rinds and given the name 'pepos' (sing. = pepo). Pepos are common among but not exclusive to cucurbits.

My cultivation involved digging 800cm deep pits the previous winter and filling them with green waste, leaves and manure. A great deal of horse and alpaca manure. When the time came to plant I covered the composted materials with a layer of soil, so as not to burn the seedling's roots.  As the vines were growing I supplemented with more manure and nitrogenous wastes in the form of a tea. Next year I will experiment with switching to a potassium heavy fertiliser (maybe comfrey based) after fruit set to encourage their growth.

At the point of harvest I had these large inedible pumpkins that were almost too heavy to lift. So what to do?

I present my solution below (music = Drain by Autechre from the Peel Session CDEP)

Master's Programme - Australian Outback Fieldwork

The following is a photo-essay of some critters I encountered during the month I spent at Fowler's Gap Research Station in the Australian outback, doing work on small mammal abundance in response to grazing and rainfall. The posting was part of my Masters of Conservation Biology programme back in... ummmm... the second half of 2010. 

Lucky for us the area had received a lot of rain - breaking a drought that had lasted almost 20 years. A lot of the animals we trapped would be a lot harder to find in leaner times.

The pictures are recently claimed from a laptop I was using at the time, So I thought I would give them a fresh airing. Out of respect for you, gentle viewer, I have omitted the countless, tedious images of plants and plant-parts.

Myself and two other Master's students were trying to approximate mammal and (informally) reptile abundances using pitfall traps. After we had identified, measured and weighed any animals unlucky enough to fall into the traps they were released. All identifications were made by we three students and may be suspect.

Some reptiles:

Tympanocryptus lineata

Diplodactylus byrnei (?) gecko

Unidentified gecko

 The Shingleback below didn't fall into the trap, they were just sunning themselves nearby:

Tiliqua rugosa  - Shingleback

T. rugosa

T. rugosa. In life the tongue is bright blue.

    We had an unexpected Goanna capture, a real treasure.

Varanus spp. Maybe V. gouldii

We trapped invertebrates too. Hard to tell without a scale, but the two below were rather large

Centipedes

What we were hoping to find were native Australian rodents and "marsupial mice" called Dunnarts. These are short lived insectivores. The females have tiny, backwards-facing pouches. The pictures are all of Dunnarts. We did catch native rodents but they didn't photograph well.

Dunnart. Sminthopsis sp. Not dead - In a torpor

Sminthopsis crassicaudata. They have many peg-like fangs - And know how to use them.

Sminthopsis macrorura

We also caught plenty of field mice. The rainfall had favoured them too. They were at plague proportions. Some mornings a single trap would be teeming with mice. The picture below is far from the record which was about 12!

There is a dunnart in here too, from 9-10 O'Clock. The mouse at 1-2 O'Clock was savaged by companions.

Here is a random frog, photographed at night: These frogs were often heard, but seen only once. Amazing that anurans could survive in the outback (daytime high in summer, in exposed locations = 40°C +), but they favour areas such as the water tanks and tree hollows.

Random frog.

A kangaroo story:

Hey, what would an outback experience be without a kangaroo story. We helped with a kangaroo study conducted at the station. The study involved capturing female kangaroos with joeys, by using tranquiliser darts. 

It took a while before the shooter got this right. In one of the first attempts, the dart hit the female in her pouch, went through the skin and drugged the joey! As she ran off, the joey came out of her pouch. The mother fled, never to return, so we collected up the young kangaroo, took them back to the station for the night.

At first the team had to process the other successful captures and my job was to cuddle the joey. I held them in my arms for over an hour. An amazing experience.

Later we put them into a backpack, hung them on a chair and fed them every few hours on a special milk formula. The next day we went to the nearby town of Broken Hill and dropped the joey off with an organisation dedicated to their care.

Nate feeding the joey

Final image of an amazing sunset. 

Putiki Garden - Plants and Creatures as Summer Draws to a Close

The market garden has produced well this summer. Quinoa and  pumpkins are thus far counted among the successes. The yacón (Peruvian ground apples) are growing extremely well, but remain yet unharvested so their tuber production is currently a mystery.

Unfortunately the oca (yams) did not fare as satisfactorily. They started well enough, produced lots of oxalis-like foliage and flowers, however, all but two clusters have rotted just below ground without producing any tubers. Will be interesting to see how the remaining plants produce.

There are plenty of creatures around at the moment. Below are some pics of a visiting White-faced Heron that was feeding on insects hiding in the drainage ditch around the potato patch. We also have a nest of Kingfisher chicks up in a hollow willow-tree branch. The noise they make is very strange, sounding almost "synthesised".

Whited-faced heron  Egretta novaehollandiae. The potatoes didn't do so well this year either. With some improvement to the soil the new crops of zucchini, cucumbers and red onions are faring much better

There are also plenty of monarch butterflies around. The trade-off for their welcome presence is either (1) having to remove all seed pods from the large numbers of swan plants around or (2) the annoyance of having to pull out tiny swan-plant seedlings from all the garden beds.

Monarch Caterpillar. At Putiki their food plants, swan plants (Gomphocarpus fruticosus), are all very denuded at present, yet they will survive through winter to put on foliage for another round of hungry caterpillars.

Monarch butterfly Danaus plexippus just emerged from the chrysalis. It only takes moments for their abdomen and wings to reverse in size

As mentioned before, it's been a good year for pumpkins. Below are examples of the two main varieties grown. The pinkish-orange ones are called "Brodé Galeaux D'Eysines, which translates as “embroidered with warts from Eysines" (Eysines is a small french city). The greenish-grey pumpkin at the front-right is Marina di Choggia -"Sea pumpkin from Chioggia" (Chioggia is a small seaside town in Italy). This pumpkin is traditionally used for making gnocchi (great recipe via blog entry here). Each of these pumpkins weighs between 9-10kgs.

Brunei Photo Finish

Part Two: Some pictures.

*WARNING frustration follows*
Question: What happens when you discover that the paper your supervisor thought you would get out of your literature review (due date = soon) has been done already, less than 5 years ago, and all your research question have actually been answered or disregarded?

Answer: You're well and truly F^&%#%ed, so you waste some time blogging!
*frustration ends*

So here are those pics from Brunei. Mostly critters again, very few peeps:

From Badas Peat Swamp:

Random spider. Why the thick strip across the web? Reinforcing?

Unusual galls on unidentified broadleaf.

From Regenerating Karangas Forest, after burning:

Close-up of ant housing inside Mrymecodia stem. Ants bring soil into spaces, plant grows  roots internally! Anyone wanting to hear a dodgy story about this piece of plant, feel free to mail me.

From Kuala Belalong, Mixed Dipterocarp Forest:

Tiny wasp house? About 1 cm tall.

Beautiful dehisced seed pod

Unidentified assassin bug, with sticky forelegs. Later we found some more under tree bark, covered in sap, feasting on ants

More assassin bugs, their privacy invaded.

The Canopy Walkway, starring 김문일

From Selirong Forest:

Of those I saw, this was the harshest environment.

From Water Village:

Demolition/Construction

No Swimming

Garden 1. Platycerium (?)

Garden 2. Sometimes you just need green and growing things around...

Good times, good times.

Aquatic Carnivorous Plant

The group (genus) of plants I'm studying for my PhD is Utricularia, commonly called "bladderworts". Bladderworts are carnivorous plants that grow in a wide range of environments; they can be  terrestrial, aquatic or epiphytic.

Bladderworts capture prey with tiny, tiny suction traps that range between 0.2 and 2.0 mm long. The traps work by using a negative pressure gradient. Imagine a squishy balloon with a small door, surrounded by water. When the balloon is empty the water pressure on the outside makes it flat. When the door is triggered the water rushes inside the balloon making it swell up.

A small animal that triggers the trap gets swept inside with the water and suffocates to death. This happens very, very fast, It takes about 0.0007 seconds for door to open, too quick for the brain of the animal to tell (the rest of) its body to move out of the way.

Below are some pictures of a an aquatic species indigenous (though not endemic) to New Zealand, U. australis. They look kind of boring until you get them under a microscope, and I haven't managed to photograph them very well yet, but here a a few attempts.

This first pic shows the growing tip with a few immature traps plus some older mature ones. The trap circled in blue is side on (lateral view); the trap circled in purple is seen from almost above (dorsal view). In the bottom right corner is a dead fly of some sort.

Zooming in on the trap in lateral view you can see antennae and bristles poking out from around the door. These might help attract prey by giving them something to graze on that leads down to the trap door.. They definitely accumulate algae and little commensal creatures like sessile rotifers. You can also see something trapped inside the bladder that might be captured prey.

Side view of trap

Here is a close-up of two traps as seen from underneath (ventral view). On one of them the door area is marked with a blue dot. Their bristles are obvious and have the filthy beard look going on.

Underside of two traps

Lastly, here is a commensual creature in action - probably a sessile rotifer. They are hard to make out in the video, so here is a photo (from here) of a similar animal to give you an idea of what they actually look like. They attach to a substrate (like an bladderwort leaf or trap) and filter feed.

Sessile rotifer

All the action takes place in the top part of the video-window. That's the wing of the dead fly you can see below. The resolution is too poor to see much full-screen. I'll try for some better video in a later post.

Reference:

Juniper, B. E., R. J. Robins, et al. (1989). The carnivorous plants, Academic Press.