The seedling transplant age is an important factor, since it may affect the quality and yield of plants if the tray cell size is not ideal to the time that the seedlings remain in the tray. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of seedling age on the 'Sandy' zucchini production. Treatmeats consisted of five seedling transplanting ages (36, 32, 28, 24 and 20 days after sowing). The experimental design was randomized blocks, with six replicates and five plants per plot. Sowings were performed at each four days in polystyrene trays contaning 128 cells, in order to transplant seedlings with different ages at same day (08/17/2007). At the transplanting day, the number of seedling leaves, fresh and dry mass of the shoot, were avaluated and after transplanting, the fruit total yield per plant (number and mass) and commercial fruit yield per plant (number and mass). Seedlings with 32 days after sowing showed a higher number of leaves and shoot fresh mass, however, the highest fruit yield per plant is obtained with seedlings 27 days after sowing, which corresponds to seedlings with 3.2 leaves.
Cucurbita moschata; seedling production; trays
