Sex Expression and Yield Responses of Squash Plants to Ethrel

الملخص

Two experiments were conducted at Sidi El Meseri Vegetable Station, Tripoli to study theeffect of Ethrel Concentrations and the number ofapplications on sex expression and yield components of the local Squash Variety.
The results obtained could be summarized as follows:
1.Pistillate — staminate flower ratios tended to increase by spraying the plants with Ethrel material. These were 0.1 :1 for the untreated plants and 68.6:1 for plants treated at the rate of 1,000 ppm in spring planting. For the autumn season, they were 0.1:1 and 37.8:1 for the respective treatments.
2.The two applications of Ethrel increased the pistillate flowers than the single one.
3.Ethrel application at the rate of 1,000 ppm increased the average fruit weight by 90 grams more than the untreated plants in the spring trial, and 45 grams in the autumn trial.
4.Fruit length tended to decrease, while fruit width slightly increased by treating squash plants with Ethrel material.
5.The average total yield increased as the concentration of Ethrel increased up to 500 ppm in spring, and up to 750 ppm in autumn. It was 40.50 tons/ha for the treated plants against 20.62 tons/ha for the untreated ones in spring. The corresponding yields for autumn were 35.00 and 26.37 tons/ha, respectively.
The average early yield represented 8.8 and 50 % of the total yield for untreated plants with 750 ppm, whereas in autumn it was 21.4% for the untreated plants and 35.1 % for plants sprayed with 500 ppm.