Kerala agri varsity develops a new hybrid variety of salad cucumber

Salad cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is a dietary component in raw or cooked veggies served with lunch or supper. It is a multipurpose crop for expanding both under open up situation, shaded predicament or guarded cultivation under shade-internet or poly-property.

Even though usual cucumber kind suited for expanding under open up situation make the two male and female flowers, these Parthenocarpic hybrids suited for expanding under poly-homes make only female flowers and all these flowers produce into fruits devoid of pollination.

Nevertheless, business generation of Parthenocarpic cucumber hybrids carried out in the company sector by means of greenhouses has produced the seeds dearer to farmers with its price tag ranging concerning ₹4 and ₹6 for each seed, suggests T Pradeepkumar, Head of Office of Vegetable Science, Kerala Agricultural University (KAU).

Polyhouse cultivation

To make it a successful agri-enterprise, he reported KAU has launched a new hybrid range — KAU Parthenocarpic Cucumber Hybrid-1(KPCH-1) — suited for poly-property cultivation. The breeding traces generated by KAU could make accessible fruits at an very affordable charge of ₹1 for each seed.

In accordance to him, the freshly-developed cucumber is ideally suited for poly-property cultivation, as the fruit is harvested in immature phase and vertical top of the poly-property framework can be utilised for the generation of a lot more range of fruiting nodes.

Prices and Returns

In India, cucumber is grown in excess of three lakh hectares with a marketplace benefit of ₹60 crore for seeds the two hybrid and usual. The Parthenocarpic cucumber hybrid is specialty segment and its profitability has attracted lots of young farmers to go for its cultivation. A ten cent poly-property can generate 5 tonnes with a return of ₹3 lakh in 4 months at a selling price tag of ₹60 for each kg, Pradeepkumar added.

KPCH-1 was developed by the University with a centered breeding programme in 2011. It was notified for Kerala by the Central Seed Committee in 2019. This is the only general public sector hybrid in Parthenocarpic cucumber hybrids notified in India.

These new cucumber hybrids are now the most sought-after range of farmers in Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Many upcountry farmers have currently started out on the internet procurement of seeds from KAU.

Moreover, the agricultural universities in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka have currently performed trials with this hybrid range and found it to be superior to business hybrids in the non-public sector, Pradeepkumar reported.