THE STORAGE OF HUBBARD SQUASH 



unnoticed injuries result in much more spoilage than from obviously 

 injured places. Spoilage after injuries mostly occurred early. There 

 fore, any method of reducing stem 

 importance. 



infections should be of great 



^*',. .ffX?** Tfjs^tv, .v3--ii- 



Fig. 3. — A squash stored at near freezing temperature, showing the 

 typical storage rots developing under these conditions. 



The 1943-1944 Experiments 



Despite the lack of success with cold storage in 1942-43 and be- 

 cause of the observation that certain of the storage rots which oc- 

 curred at high temperatures failed to develop at low temperatures, 

 it was thought that perhaps by proper handling these could be elimi- 

 nated and that cold storage might yet be feasible: hence, this was re- 

 peated with variations. The squash crop in 1943 was generally im- 

 mature ; therefore, only the more mature specimens were selected 

 for the experiment, and no attempt was made to separate them into 

 degrees of maturity. Because of the large number of infections which 

 had been noted as occuring at the stem end. it was decided this year 

 to see if removing the stem altogether might not be beneficial. There- 

 fore, with some of the squashes the stems Avere gouged out. since it 

 did not seem to be feasible to cut the stem off close to the squash with 

 a knife. Some of these gouged places were not treated, others were 

 dusted with Fermate or C.O.C.S. 



The 1943-1944 Results 



As will be noted by an examination of Tabic /. removing the 

 stems decreased the amount of spoilage. In one test. C.O.C.S. ap- 

 plied to the cut surfaces caused some injury. Squash taken directly 

 from the field to storage kept better than those that were field-piled. 

 Bruising resulted in greater losses than cutting, when the cutting was 

 done by hacking each squash with an ax to at least f 2 inch in depth. 

 In this test, the bruising was extremelv severe, the head of the nail- 

 ing hatchet being sunk below the surface of the squash. The figures 

 on the number of squashes which spoiled when cut with an ax does 



