TROPICAL PUMPKIN HYBRID DEVELOPMENT: LANDRACES TO HYBRID CULTIVARS

Production of tropical pumpkin, Cucurbita moschata, is difficult and labor intensive.
Current cultivars have long vines, flower and set fruit for several weeks, and true breeding stocks are not commercially available.
Breeders in Florida and Puerto Rico have selected lines from heterogeneous long-vined cultivars and have developed short-vined lines from crosses with temperate bush butternuts.
From preliminary evaluation of 260 hybrids in 1997 and 1998, 18 hybrids were selected for advanced trialing in 1999. Two short- x short- and two short- x long-vined hybrids (SS13, SS15, SL04, SL06) were identified as superior.
Their compact plant habits facilitated cultivation and permitted higher plant densities; consequently, yield per acre was higher than for long-vined cultivars.
The four hybrids also flowered 10–15 days earlier than long-vined cultivars and produced more uniform fruit with deeper orange color and higher dry matter.

VII Eucarpia Meeting on Cucurbit Genetics and Breeding

R. Bruce Carle, Donald N. Maynard, L. Wessel-Beaver

Cucurbita moschata, short-vined hybrids

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2000.510.16