الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Squash plant, Cucurbita ~ L. is one of the
important vegetable crops grown in Egypt. The total area
cultivated was 60027 feddan in 1984. The corresponding
production of squash fruits was 480956 tons.
It has been noticed by some of expert E~ptian
farmers that, growing squash plants from one year old
seed gave higher fruits yield than those plants grown
from newly harvested seeds.
In Experiments extending over 3 years, groHing cucuni::er
plants from 3 years old seeds improved their female
flowers production and increased yield by 10% compared
with those grown from 2-years old seeds (Smerda and Tichy,
1957). Moreover, it was found by Oveka (1960) that field
pickling cucumber plants grown from 2-years old seeds gave
an increased yield of 6.05% compared with those raised
from one-year old seeds. Furthermore, cucumber varieties
raised from 2 or 3 years old seeds were more productive
than those raised from one-year old seeds (Boss , 1966).
However, storage of squash seeds for either one or two
years significantly reduced the number of male flowers
and the values of sex-ratio (Abou-Hussein and El-Beltagy,
1977) 0