Genetic diversity of Cucurbita pepo L. and Cucurbita moschata Duchesne accessions using fruit and seed quantitative traits

Twenty one accessions of Cucurbita pepo and eleven accessions of Cucurbita moschata were collected from different regions of Iran and variations in fruit and seed characters evaluated during 2016-2017. The basic statistics of traits has demonstrated considerable variability among accessions. Correlation analysis revealed some important associations among studied traits. In C. pepo, a positive correlation were between seed width and fruit weight, seed weight, fruit flesh thickness, fruit cavity diameter and seed length and in C. moschata, total soluble solid (TSS) was positively correlated with fruit flesh thickness, fruit weight and fruit yield and negatively correlated with fruit weight/seed weight. PCA generalized 15 quantitative characters to five PCs in C. pepo and four PCs in C. moschata having Eigen value> 1 explaining 89.85% and 87.13% of the total variability, respectively. Cluster analysis classified C. pepo accessions into six and C. moschata accessions in five divergent groups. The result showed that in C. pepo accessions we can use cluster II members (P02 and P15) as normal seed types and P03 and P05 as naked seed types for next breeding programmes as well as seed production. Among C. moschata accessions we suggest M05 and M11 for next breeding programmes and consumption as pumpkin, also we suggest cluster I (M02 and M03) as the best accessions for consumption their fruits as pumpkin.