Vine Borer Resistant Kabocha – Research Sample (Certified Organic)

Grown by Twin Oaks Seed Farm (VA) – Cucurbita maxima – 110 days

Breeding project led by Edmund Frost. The goal is a kabocha squash with excellent eating quality that can withstand the pests and diseases we encounter in Virginia. Our experience with maxima-species squash is that they usually have a hard time with vine borers, bacterial wilt, sunburn, and squash bugs, among other things, in our conditions. But we love the dry, nutty flavor that is possible with this species. Moranga Coroa is a maxima from Brazil that has been able to handle these problems in our trials. However, eating quality is more vegetable than dessert squash. We crossed it with Winter Sweet Kabocha from Johnny’s, and have been selecting now for six years.

Progress has not been as fast as we’d like. In 2024 we made a number of self-pollinated selections for flavor that we were excited about. But in 2025 many of the offspring succumbed early to vine borers and other problems. A few of them did have the desired combination of growing well and tasting great, and we’ll keep moving forward with these. This research sample comprises seeds from the best four plants of 2025. Flavor is excellent. The squash are mostly oblate, with weights that range from 2 to 5 pounds, and color ranging from light grey to dark grey, with some blue and pink hues. They are attractive and tend to be very good keepers.

These seeds and their offspring are open-source and not available for private intellectual property ownership. Pass these words on when you pass the seeds on!