The purpose of plant breeding is to combine in a single individual or variety a desirable level of expression of all important traits. This can be difficult to achieve because the various desirable traits are often distributed among different plant types. Population improvement can be accomplished by simultaneous incorporation of several types into a composite population, followed by selection for maximum expression of the various traits within the offspring. Evaluation and selection of parent materials to combine into such a population to permit this accumulation of traits, therefore, becomes important.

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Research was conducted under Agricultural Experiment Station Project 906-E-R, Cucurbit Breeding.