ABSTRACT. This study was carried out to determine the effect of different nutritional systems (chemical, biological and integrated) on germination and seedling growth in medicinal pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L.). The statistical design was a randomized complete block design with four replications. Four levels of different fertilizing systems including chemical (T1), biological (a combination of nitrogen bacteria, Azospirillum brasilense and Glomus mosseae) (T2) and integrated fertilizing systems (biological fertilizer + 50% chemical fertilizer) (T3), and control (without fertilizer) (T0), were employed. The results indicated that the maximum seed germination was 95% and the highest seed germination rate with 30.4 per day was observed in the intergraded nutritional treatment. The experimental results showed that all nutritional treatments had positive effects on seed germination compared to control. The highest level of germination percentage with 95% and the highest rate of germination with 30.4 seeds per day were obtained in integrated nutritional treatment. However, the integrated nutritional system required more time to demonstrate its positive effect on the growth and yield of medicinal pumpkin compared to chemical system. The results of present experiment indicated that integrated nutritional treatment had the greatest positive impact on germination characteristics in medicinal pumpkin. Designing and developing such nutritional systems can guarantee and facilitate the achievement of long-term objectives of sustainable agriculture.

To evaluate the effect of head pruning and different nutritional systems (chemical, biological and integrated) on yield and seed oil content in medicinal pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L.), an experiment was conducted in Kermanshah/Iran during the 2013 growing season. The experimental treatments consisted of two levels - no head pruning, control (Co) and head pruning (C1) allocated to the main plots. Four levels of different fertilizing systems - control (without fertilizer) (T0), chemical (T1), biological (a combination of nitrogen fixing bacteria, Azospirillum brasilense and Glomus mosseae) (T2), and integrated fertilizing system (biological fertilizer + 50% chemical fertilizer) (T3) were assigned to the sub-plots. The experimental treatments were arranged as a split plot based on a randomized complete block design with three replications. The results showed that the highest percentage of seed oil was obtained (37%) in the integrated nutritional system along with the head pruning treatment. The highest grain yields of 53 and 50 g per square meter were obtained in integrated and chemical fertilizing systems, respectively while no pruning was applied. The highest fruit yields of 3,710 and 3,668 kg per hectare were produced by chemical and integrated fertilizing systems, respectively. The biological nutrition system required more time to demonstrate its positive effect on the growth and yield of medicinal pumpkin.