The effect of pollen quantity using manual pollination on seed production and the quality of summer squash was evaluated. Female flowers were manually pollinated with a half or twice the pollen quantity of a male flower to get seeds named first cycle. Later, female flowers of plants from these seeds were pollinated again with the same pollen quantity of the first cycle, getting seeds named second cycle. These four "populations" obtained (two in each cycle), besides the original one (commercial seeds of cv. Piramoita), constituted the five treatments evaluated in a randomized block design, with six replications and ten plants/plot. Fruit number per plant, fruit mean weight, seed yield per fruit and per plant, 100 seed weight, seed germination and vigor were estimated. Greater fruit and seed number per plant were obtained with twice pollen quantity (2nd cycle) than a half pollen quantity (1st cycle). Seed quality (germination and vigor) was not affect by treatments.
Cucurbita moschata; flowers; seed quality
