Kerala agri varsity develops a new hybrid variety of salad cucumber
Salad cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is a dietary ingredient in uncooked or cooked veggies served with lunch or meal. It is a versatile crop for increasing both under open issue, shaded situation or shielded cultivation under shade-web or poly-household.
Even though normal cucumber variety appropriate for increasing under open issue deliver both equally male and female flowers, these Parthenocarpic hybrids appropriate for increasing under poly-homes deliver only female flowers and all these flowers build into fruits with no pollination.
Nonetheless, commercial manufacturing of Parthenocarpic cucumber hybrids carried out in the company sector by greenhouses has designed the seeds dearer to farmers with its cost ranging among ₹4 and ₹6 for every seed, says T Pradeepkumar, Head of Division of Vegetable Science, Kerala Agricultural University (KAU).
Polyhouse cultivation
To make it a lucrative agri-venture, he mentioned KAU has released a new hybrid assortment — KAU Parthenocarpic Cucumber Hybrid-one(KPCH-one) — appropriate for poly-household cultivation. The breeding strains created by KAU could make accessible fruits at an cost-effective price tag of ₹1 for every seed.
According to him, the newly-produced cucumber is preferably suited for poly-household cultivation, as the fruit is harvested in immature stage and vertical height of the poly-household framework can be utilised for the manufacturing of much more variety of fruiting nodes.
Fees and Returns
In India, cucumber is grown about three lakh hectares with a current market price of ₹60 crore for seeds both equally hybrid and normal. The Parthenocarpic cucumber hybrid is specialty phase and its profitability has attracted a lot of young farmers to go for its cultivation. A ten cent poly-household can yield 5 tonnes with a return of ₹3 lakh in four months at a offering cost of ₹60 for every kg, Pradeepkumar added.
KPCH-one was produced 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-following assortment of farmers in Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. A lot of upcountry farmers have presently begun on line procurement of seeds from KAU.
In addition to, the agricultural universities in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka have presently done trials with this hybrid assortment and discovered it to be outstanding to commercial hybrids in the non-public sector, Pradeepkumar mentioned.
