Abstract:
Pumpkin is a popular vegetable
cultivated worldwide for its high nutritional value
and health benefits. The lack of locally developed
elite germplasms has led farmers in Sri Lanka to
adopt imported hybrid varieties. This implies the
necessity of strengthening breeding programs for
promoting local pumpkin germplasms. Hence, the
present study was focused on evaluating seven
pumpkin accessions obtained from Plant Genetic
Resource Centre, Gannoruwa and to characterize
morphologically and to assess their yield
potentials. A field experiment was carried out by
implementing a randomized complete block
design with three replicates. Quantitative
morphological traits were analyzed by ANOVA
techniques. Accordingly, the vine length at
flowering ranged between 2.5 m- 3.9 m (p<0.05),
the shortest stem was produced by T1 while the
longest were observed in T4 and T6. Interestingly,
the number of days taken to male and female
flowering ranged between 33-36d (p<0.05),
denoting that all accessions had displayed early
flowering character than the commercial pumpkin
varieties (55d). At harvest, the highest fruit yield
was recorded in accessions Thirunaweli (9.6
kg/plant) while the remainder counterparts had
displayed half of the yielding capacity (p<0.05).
Moreover, the analysis qualitative trait revealed
that accession Wellawaya produced distinct ovate
leaf shapes and fruits skin color (cream), while in
Thirunaweli, had displayed unique cylindricalshaped fruits. Moreover, Principal component
analysis revealed that accessions Thirunaweli had
distinct cluster form the remainder germplasms.
Hence, based on the results it was found that the
overall performance of Thirunaweli and
Wellawaya accessions were superior and
suggested to introgress with the local crop
improvement programs.
