Hybrid Performance of Mini Cucumber (Cucumis sativus)

Abstract

Mini cucumbers for local market in Thailand are lacking of superior femaleness. The development of high-female aims for improving cucumber yield. The purpose in using high-female if not all female to develop hybrid cultivars. Evaluation of twenty one cucumber accession collected from farmers, seed dealers and plant breeders indicated that populations C4, C5, C13 and C14 consisted high percentage of high-female plants. Selfed lines were maintained and crossing among s1-lines were made. The evaluation of crosses was carried out during November 1989 January 1990, at the KU-JICA experimental field, Central Laboratory and Greenhouse Complex (CLGC), Kasetsart University, Kampaengsaen, Nakhon Pathom. The experiment was conducted using randomized complete block design with three replications. The performance on flowering habits, yield and fruit characters were compared; and the heterosis of all characters were recorded. Results showed that crosses C5 x C4 and C14 x C5 were outstanding among 12 combinations. The cross C5 x C4 showed highest in the number of female flower per plant, fruit length, fruit width and average fruit weight with heterosis on most characters as mentioned including early flowering. The cross C14 x C5 was second to C5 x C4 due to its inferiority of the average fruit weight. The reciprocal crosses of the two combinations showed less in number of female flower per plant also less fruit per plant, but gave longer fruit length. The results revealed that the C5 line was most valuable parent and produced promising hybrids in combinations of C4 and C14 lines.