EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES ON THE GROWTH AND YIELD OF SOME VARIETIES OF FEMALE WINTER CUCUMBERS

The cultivation of winter cucumbers in polythene greenhouses on the Canary Islands has shown great expansion during the last six years and today it is rated as the second vegetable crop on these Islands (only tomatoes exceed it) with a production of 30 million kg. in 1972 as opposed to only 5 million kg. in 1966. At first, on these Islands, cucumbers were cultivated almost exclusively on the island of Gran Canaria, especially in the Telde area. Although the most frequent varieties were the hybrids with 90 to 95% of female flowers, there used to be no problems with the pollination because the greenhouses were big enough. However, once the cucumber cultivation had spread to the island of Tenerife the small greenhouses where this crop is cultivated, together with the constant winds coming from the South have made it necessary to suppress the male flowers. The labourcost thus incurred make the commercial growing of the cucumber uneconomic.

In order to solve this problem the Regional Centre of Agrarian Research on the Canary Islands has conducted some experiments with female winter cucumbers (100% of female flowers). Results and discussion of the first year of trials are shown.