Calabaza or tropical pumpkin is in the cucurbitaceae or squash family. It is also known by several other common names: West Indian pumpkin, green pumpkin, Cuban pumpkin, and Cuban squash. Calabaza is a common vegetable and food staple throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, and southern Florida. It is served in soups, baked, used in pies, and stir-fried with several meats such as chicken, beef, and shrimp. Calabaza has a sweet flavor similar to butternut squash. Most varieties have a deep orange color with a firm texture. The outside ranges in color from green to a pale tan as it matures. A web search will yield information and recipes. But, as with most information found on the web, use caution.

Calabaza has been grown in central Florida for the past four years to study variety yield, spring vs. summer planting (Table 1), in the row spacing of bush type hybrids, and the affect of colored mulch on fruit size and yield. Twenty eight colored mulches, including 8 black with 1 mil thickness, 7 black with 0.8 mil thickness, 3 silver (gray), 2 blue, 2 white, 2 white on black, and 1 each of olive, red, brown, and green, were evaluated for three seasons. Calabaza was grown as a second crop after either tomato, pepper, squash, or watermelon.

Mulch color (Table 2) affected early plant growth with white on black, white, and green, having more large plants at 23 days after transplanting. Blue, olive, and silver mulches has the smallest plant growth. At harvest, the early plant growth due to mulch color was not correlated with early maturity of fruit, yield, fruit size, or average fruit weight. The highest yield was obtained on black, silver, blue, green, and white on black mulches. The red mulch had the lowest yield. Mulch color did not affect the number of fruit.

When hybrid bush calabaza was grown as a second crop, yield, fruit size and number, and average fruit weight were slightly less than spring planted, but overall yield was similar (Table 3).

The two in-row spacings were 2 and 3 feet on beds 5 foot on center. There were no interactions for color mulch at these spacings for yield, number of fruit per plant, or fruit size (width and height). The 2 foot spacing had higher total yields, fewer fruit per plant, and smaller size fruit than the 3 foot spacing. There were more plants per acre at the 2 foot spacing accounting for the higher yield. The bush experimental lines had slightly smaller fruit size and weight, were easier to harvest, and more uniform in size.

With the increase demand for a quality calabaza, it is a crop that needs consideration.