Weather Association with Yield Production and Radiation use Efficiency of Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L.)

Climate variation is one of the major factors causing fluctuation of growth and economic yield of plants at both temporal and spatial scales. Evaluation of climate impacts on growth and yield of plants is important to achieve desirable growth pattern and highest possible yield. Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L.) is an economically important plant and is cultivated throughout the world for oil and medicinal purposes. The current study was conducted to investigate the impacts of annual climate variations on dry matter accumulation, yield production and radiation use efficiency (RUE) of pumpkin. The required data of pumpkin growth were collected from three years experiment (2010, 2012 and 2013) at research farm of Ferdowsi university of Mashhad. A thorough analysis was carried out between yield production and radiation use efficiency of pumpkin with climate variables (including growing degree day (GDD), precipitation, solar radiation, potential evapotranspiration and number of days with maximum temperature higher than 32 oC). This study showed that the impact of total precipitation on pumpkin dry weight was significant (P