Evaluation of New Summer Squash Hybrids (Cucurbita pepo L.) Compare with some Commercial Cultivars

In this investigation four parental lines and their six F1 hybrids - half diallel Mating Design - as well as three commercial cultivars were evaluated for some economic traits; vegetative growth, flowering and earliness, fruits, yield and yield component traits in field trial during 2018 and 2019 early summer seasons. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. Each replicate consisted of 13 plots. The results could be summarized as follow: the results of mean values showed that no parental line was superior for all studied traits. Meanwhile, the parent (P3) exhibited the best values for most studied traits specially earliness and yield traits. Moreover, the obtained results confirmed that the highest mean values recorded in the F1 hybrids were P3xP4 for stem length, number of male flowers/ plant and number of female flowers/ plant, average fruit weight, fruit yield/plant and total yield/ fed.; P1xP3 for sex ratio and fruit diameter; P1xP2 for fruit length and fruit shape index; P1xP4 for fruits number/ plant. The three crosses (F1 hybrids) P1xP2, P1xP4 and P3xP4 had better mean values over the commercial F1 hybrids for sex ratio, fruit length, fruit shape index, fruits number/plant, fruits yield/ plant and total yield/ fed.