Agronomic Characteristics of Squash Germplasm with a low viability in National Agrobiodiversity Center, Korea

More than 2,500 accessions of squash germplasm are preserved in the National Agrobidiversity Center of RDA, Korea. We investigated the ecological and morphological characteristics on 100 accessions of the squash germplasms with a low viability. Two typical types of oriental squash (Cucurbita moschata) and western squash (Cucurbita maxima) are possessed 89 and 11 accessions, respectively. The origin of 100 accessions was divided into three groups, group I (Korea landraces with 81 accessions), group II (Nepal with 15 accessions) and group III (Russia, Uzbekistan, Laos, and Mexico with each one accession). Seventy eight accessions germinated at $27^{\circ}C$ in growth chamber. Days to first flowering of the female and male flower ranged from 32 days to 67 days and 24 days to 55 days after planting, respectively. Vine length showed the largest variation ranging from 357.8 cm to 1,465 cm, also the average length of ten stem node range has a variable ranges from 92 cm to 217.5 cm. All regenerated squash accessions have an only collided tendril and have three to seven lateral shoots. The flattened globe-shaped squash is the most predominant and exhibited ordinarily round shaped, ball shaped, long oblong-shaped, elongated shape, and pear shape. The average weight of fruit ranged from 1.33 kg to 7.95 kg. Sugar contents showed 5.4~12.6 $Brix^{\circ}$ without ripening period.