BIODIVERSITY OF NATIONAL SQUASH CULTIVAR ACCESSIONS

Abstract

The squash is one of the most ancient plants, bearing numerous qualities. The squash gave high yield and is unpretentious plant, the fruit of which is long-stored and can be used as boiled, stewed, baked, fried product, and be added to bread, mush and pudding, and be prepared as puree, jam, candied fruit and other meals. Owing to useful characteristics the squash is a valuable source or raw material for food canning industry, for health-care and functional foodstuff production. Its best cultivar accessions contain to 30% of dry matter, to 12% of sugars and to 36% of carotene. The species of squash includes 4 subspecies and 20 varieties. One accession that came from Spain in 1937 served as an initial breeding accession for many other table cultivars for long time. For 80 years of national breeding program the many cultivars for table use have been released. There are the classic cultivars, such as ‘Mramornaya’, ‘Stolovaya Zimnaya’, Gribovskaya Zimnaya’, ‘Donskaya Sladkaya’, ‘Michurinskaya’ that are selected or developed from first Spanish accession. This richness and originality of cultivar squash accessions should be carefully preserved. There are the new generation cultivars, such as ‘Kroshka’, ‘Malishka’, ‘Rossiyanka’, ‘Konfetka’, ‘Moskvichka’, ‘Vnuchka’ and many others, which are short-tendrils and suitable for modern mechanized cultivation technology. Moreover the development of new cultivars, bearing resistance to biotic and abiotic stress is the main goal of nearest breeding program.

Keywords

• squash
• cultivars
• initial breeding material
• biochemical composition.