Oakes Irrigation Research
Site
Carrington Research Extension Center * North Dakota State University
P.O. Box 531, Oakes, ND 58474-0531, Voice: (701) 742-2189, FAX: (701)
742-2700, email: rgreenla@ndsuext.nodak.edu
WINTER SQUASH VARIETY PERFORMANCE TRIAL,1996
Richard G Greenland and Leonard Besemann
Winter squash grow well in southern North Dakota. A small, but steady, market is available within the state. There are also markets outside the state, especially if squash is stored, then shipped during the winter. This replicated trial had 8 winter squash varieties.
Table 54. Yields and fruit characteristics.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
| Soil: | Egeland loam and Maddock sandy loam; pH=7.4; 2.3% organic matter; soil-P was very high; soil-K was high; soil-S was very low. |
| Previous crop: | 1995 - carrot; 1994 - sweet corn; 1993 - cabbage. |
| Seedbed preparation: | Disked on May 3. Multiweeded (field cultivated) on May 20 to smooth seedbed. |
| Planting: | Seeds planted 1 ft apart in rows 6 ft apart on May 21. On June 28 thinned to an in-row spacing of one plant every 3 ft. |
| Plots: | Plots were 20 ft long by 6 ft (one row) wide. |
| Fertilizer: | On April 17, broadcast 14 lbs N/acre and 70 lbs P2O5/acre as 10-50-0, 16 lbs N/acre and 19 lbs S/acre as 21-0-0-24, and 94 lbs K20/acre as 0-0-60. Sprayed 50 lbs N/acre as 28-0-0 on May 3. Fertilized 70 lbs N/acre as urea on June 19. |
| Irrigation: | Overhead sprinkler irrigation as needed. |
| Pest control: | Weeds were controlled by a stale seedbed and by hand weeding. Asana (8 oz/acre chemigated on July 12 and July 31) controlled cucumber beetle. |
| Harvest: | Hand harvested Oct. 1 to Oct. 7. |
RESULTS
Happiness was the highest yielding squash, but with the large size of the fruit and the pink/light green exterior color it would not sell well in the US market. It may do okay in an export market to the Pacific rim. JSS 6278 and JSS 6279 were the best buttercups. Autumn Cup was too big and looked like a kabocha. Ambercup looked pretty and yielded well, but orange squash do not sell well. It also seemed to rot more rapidly than the other squash. Tuffy is a small acorn squash. Its yield was lower than would be expected from an acorn squash, but part of that is due to the small size. Its small size may make it more marketable. Fairy split and rotted readily, resulting in large numbers of cull fruit. It appears to be related to the butternut squash and is not adapted to North Dakota conditions.
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Table 54. Yields, etc. for the Oakes Irrigation Research Station 1996 winter squash variety performance trial.
| Name | Seed source1 | Early stand2 | Fruit size | Outside color | Number of fruit per acre | Yield per acre | ||||
| US #1 | US #2 | total | US #1 | US #2 | total | |||||
| % | lbs/fruit | ------- 1000s/acre ------ | -------- tons/acre --------- | |||||||
| Buttercup/Kabocha3 | ||||||||||
| Happiness | KY | 31 | 10.1 a4 | pink/lt. green | 4.2 bc | 0.8 | 6.0 | 22.1 a | 3.2 bc | 29.0 a |
| Ambercup | LI | 45 | 4.1 bcd | orange | 7.0 a | 1.3 | 11.2 | 14.1 b | 2.8 bc | 21.6 b |
| JSS 6278 | JS | 50 | 3.7 cd | green | 7.4 a | 1.6 | 10.7 | 13.4 b | 2.5 bc | 18.2 b |
| JSS 6279 | JS | 57 | 3.4 d | green | 6.2 abc | 2.5 | 10.9 | 10.6 bc | 4.0 b | 17.2 bc |
| Autumn cup | LI | 44 | 5.2 b | green | 3.7 cd | 1.8 | 7.2 | 10.1 bc | 3.5 b | 16.5 bc |
| Hokkori | JS | 54 | 4.1 bcd | green | 3.9 c | 1.2 | 6.3 | 8.1 c | 2.3 bc | 12.1 c |
| Acorn | ||||||||||
| Tuffy | JS | 60 | 1.3 e | green | 6.4 ab | 2.2 | 10.1 | 4.3 d | 1.2 c | 6.1 d |
| Other | ||||||||||
| Fairy5 | KY | 35 | 5.0 bc | green/orange | 1.0 d | 2.4 | 7.2 | 1.7 d | 6.6 a | 17.4 bc |
| C.V. (%) | 37 | 17 | 31 | 43 | 31 | 24 | 41 | 21 | ||
1See appendix A for seed source codes.
2Early stand - Percent of plants surviving 20 days after planting. Plots were later thinned to about 33% of the original planting.
3Buttercup and kabocha are very similar. The buttercup has shoulders that are more square and often has a "cup" on the bottom. In this trial, Happiness, Hokkori, and Autumn Cup looked like kabocha; JSS 6278 and JSS 6279 looked like buttercup; and Ambercup was somewhere in between.
4Values in the same column followed by the same letter are not significantly different at the 0.05 level. Columns without letters indicate that there were no significant differences between values in that column.
5Fairy is a tear drop shaped squash with green and light orange stripes. The taste, stem, and shell texture are similar to a butternut.
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