Fruit Textures of Beit Alpha, Greenhouse, Japanese, Pickling, and Slicer-type Cucumbers

Abstract

To differentiate the fruit texture characteristics of five major cucumber types (Beit Alpha, greenhouse, Japanese, pickling, and slicer) that are grown worldwide and to identify beneficial traits for cucumber breeding, we compared their physical properties [flesh firmness, placental firmness, skin toughness, crispness index, ratio of placental firmness to flesh firmness (relative placental firmness), and ratio of skin toughness to flesh firmness (relative skin toughness)]. We also compared the time-dependent changes in the physical properties of each type. Although differences existed in the standard size among the various types, physical properties clearly differed among the types and can be summarized as follows: the Japanese type has firmer flesh and placenta, lower relative skin toughness, and the highest crispness; Beit Alpha and greenhouse types have softer flesh, placenta, and skin, and the lowest crispness; the pickling type has firmer (tougher) flesh, placenta, and skin; and the slicer type has softer flesh and placenta, and the toughest skin. The physical properties of sequentially harvested fruits in each cultivar varied widely, indicating that fruit texture is strongly affected by cultivar (or type) and fruit size (i.e., timing of harvest). It is suggested that much attention should be paid to cucumber texture to breed favorable cultivars.

Quantitative trait locus analysis of cucumber fruit texture using double‐digest restriction‐site‐associated DNA sequencing

“…In cucumber, fruit texture is considered to be the most important deliciousness factor in Japan, because cucumber has little distinctive taste-related characteristics, such as sweetness, as are found in other fruit crops and vegetables. For example, esh crispness scores were signi cantly higher in Japanese F 1 hybrid cultivars than in other cultivars such as the Beit Alpha type and the European greenhouse type (Yoshioka et al 2009;Sakata et al 2011;Shimomura et al 2016). Therefore, fruit crispness has been an important target in cucumber breeding.…”

“…In breeding programs, the genetic structure of the breeding materials and the inheritance of target traits are important for e cient breeding. The genetic and physiological mechanisms of fruit texture traits have been investigated by many researchers (Jones 1954;Go net 1977;Peterson et al 1978; Kanno and Kamimura 1980;Suojala-Ahlfors 2005;Yoshioka et al 2010;Sakata et al 2011;Shimomura et al 2016). Although breeding efforts for many fruit vegetables have focused on improvement in texture, few advances have been made in identi cation of genetic mechanisms, because aspects of texture other than rmness are di cult to measure quantitatively.…”

A Review of Japanese Greenhouse Cucumber Research from the Perspective of Yield Components

“…Furthermore, Dutch tomato cultivars have been improved to have higher LUE (Higashide and Heuvelink, 2009). In order to improve productivity, similar breeding approaches can also be expected to be effective in Japanese cucumber, and it is necessary to re-evaluate the response of various types of Japanese cucumber plants to environmental factors in (Sakata et al, 2011) based on dry matter production.…”

“…Moreover, Japanese cucumbers have certain strict standards for fruit size: young cucumbers 22 cm long and weighing 100 g are preferred. With this background, past research on greenhouse cucumbers in Japan has been mainly conducted to control diseases, such as downy mildew and powdery mildew, and maintain fruit quality (Sakata et al, 2006;Yoshioka et al, 2014), and avoid bent fruit, bottom-gourd-shaped fruits, poor texture and gloss (Kanahama and Saito, 1989;Hirama et al, 2007;Sakata et al, 2011). In contrast, there is little information aimed at productivity improvements, such as increasing yield.…”

Parthenocarpic Cucumber Cultivar Evaluation in High-tunnel Production

“…American slicer cucumbers were originally bred for open-field production, but some of the newly introduced parthenocarpic cultivars are recommended for hightunnel production (Bogash et al, 2014). Oriental cucumbers are further divided into North Chinese, South Chinese, and Japanese types (Sakata et al, 2011). Japanese cultivars are hybrids of the South and North Chinese types.…”