The objective of this work was to compare two breeding methods to improve fruit yield and quality in 'Piramoita' summer squash. Three cycles of recurrent selection were made, with evaluation and selection of S1 progenies and recombination of plants from selected progenies to obtain improved populations after one (SR-1), two (SR-2) and three (SR-3) cycles. In the single seed descent (SSD), plants were selfed for five generations untill obtention and evaluation of S5 progenies. The nine best progenies were selected to obtain nine endogamous progenies (SSD-1 to SSD-9) and they were, also, inter-crossed to obtain a improved population by SSD (P-SSD). All obtained populations (SR-1, SR-2, SR-3, P-SSD, SSD-1 to SSD-9) and the original one (cv. Piramoita), resulting 14 treatments, were evaluated in a randomized block design, with six replications and five plants per plot. The following characteristics were evaluated: number and weight of fruits per plant, total and commercial, mean fruit weight and rate of commercial fruits. Improvements were obtained with increased commercial fruit yield along the recurrent selection cycles, and SR-3 population was superior to 'Piramoita' regarding fruit number per plant. It was obtained a SSD progeny better than the original population and as productive as SR-3 population. SSD method is a good alternative for summer squash breeding, allowing evaluation and selection of progenies, only when the progenies are practically homozygous rather than each year.
Cucurbita moschata; recurrent selection; SSD; cucurbits
