Family: CUCURBITACEAE

Botanical Name: Cucurbita pepo L. condensa (L) Bailey

Common Name:
SPANISH: Calabacín ENGLISH: Squash FRENCH: Courgette DUTCH: Courgette
PORTUGUESE: Abobrita GERMAN: Gartem- speisekürbis ITALIAN: Zucchino

General characteristics:
Annual plant of compact growth, with pentagonal section stem and short internodes. Large leaves, with long hollow petioles, lobed and with serrated edges, rough to the touch. Sometimes they show small whitish spots on the upper side. The flowers are monoecious, large, yellow; the male flowers have a long, thin stalk, while the female flowers have a thicker, shorter stalk. The fruit is an elongated, cylindrical, cylindrical and slightly mallow, without a central cavity, more or less light green, yellow or white in colour. An exception is the clypeiformis Bailey type, with flattened fruit and a warty edge; this is the case of the Peter Pan F1 variety. It is consumed fresh, in the unripe state.

Indicative data:

• Number of Seeds per Gram: 5-8
• Useful Plants per 10 gr. of Seed: 50-70
• Planting spacing between rows: 100-200 cm
• Sowing spacing between plants: 60-150 cm
• Seeds per Stroke: 1-2
• Sowing Depth: 2 cm
• Germination Power: 5 years
• Growing Cycle: 4-6 months
• Kilograms per Seed per Hectare: 2-3, 1-2
• Germination Temperature (minimum, maximum, optimum): 10ºC, 35ºC, 25ºC
• Germination Time: 5-10 days