Five morphological and agronomic characteristics were evaluated in seven squash lines. The experiment was carried out in completely randomized blocks, with three replications, and six-plant plots. Genetic parameters, as well as simple and canonic correlations were estimated. Heritability for average fruit weight and external longitudinal length were higher than 80%, with a variation index higher than one. Thus, application of simple breeding methods, such as mass selection, will result in good selection gains. Concerning simple correlations, most of the characteristic pairs (80%) had genotypic correlations higher than phenotypic and environmental correlations. Simple and canonical correlations revealed that fruit average weight increased together with increments in pulp thickness and longitudinal and transversal fruit length. On the other hand, plants with more fruits produced smaller fruits (longitudinal length), with thinner pulp, but with higher transversal length. In this population, promising commercial genotypes, producing small fruits with thick pulps, can be obtained using selection indexes.
Cucurbita moschata; genetic parameters; canonic correlations; genetic gains; selection; breeding
