Abstract
To determine appropriate fruit and plant characteristics for harvesting winter squash, the time to pick fruits was measured in three cultivars representing different plant types. In ‘Bush Buttercup’ and ‘TC2A’, almost fruits were developed in 45cm distance from the base of a plant body. Especially, ‘Bush Buttercup’ has a short main stem and less lateral shoots as other two cultivars. This plant shape in ‘Bush Buttercup’ would make it possible that harvesting worker could find fruits easily and harvest those fruits in short time. Moreover, since the peduncle of ‘Bush Buttercup’ was thin, it was easier to separate the fruit from the plant. The results from this study indicate that improvements in breeding are necessary to stabilize the position of fruit set and the thickness of the peduncle for easy fruit harvest.
