- Cucumbers (Greenhouse) | Key Growing Information
- Cucumbers (Field) | Key Growing Information
- Cucumber Grafting | Advantages, Materials & Technique
- Cucumber Terminology
- Field-Grown Cucumber Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- Greenhouse Cucumber Production Guide | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Greenhouse Cucumber Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- How to Grow Cucumbers • From Seed to Harvest
- Cucumber Beetle Lure Instructions | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- How to Prune Trellised Cucumbers to Optimize Yield & Reduce Disease Pressure
- Low-Prune Greenhouse Cucumber Production: 'Demeter' | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Fundamentals of Cucumber Grafting | Johnny's Educational Webinar Resources
- Lower & Lean Demonstration | An Intro to Greenhouse Rollerhook (or Tomahook) Trellising
- Webinar Slide Deck | Fundamentals of Cucumber Grafting | 25-pp PDF
- 'Picolino' & 'Qwerty' Snacking Cucumber Varieties From Johnny's
- Greenhouse Cucumbers: Trends & Varieties | Webinar Recording
- Greenhouse Cucumbers: Trends & Varieties | Johnny's Webinar Series
- Fundamentals of Cucumber Grafting | Webinar Recording
- Top-Grafting Cucumbers Demonstration
- 'Demeter' Low-Prune Greenhouse Cucumber Variety From Johnny's
- Limelight Trio — Lime Green Cucumber Varieties From Johnny's
- High-Value Crops & Varieties for Your Garden • Tutorial with Niki Jabbour
- 'Samurai 252' Field Cucumber
'Samurai 252' Field Cucumber
This is our variety, 'Samurai 252'. It is a gynoecious, downy mildew resistant slicing cucumber, and we're excited to add it to our downy mildew resistant assortment this year.
While many would still classify this variety as being gynoecious (meaning producing only female flowers), it's important to note that this variety is technically monoecious (meaning it also produces the male flowers). But it's predominantly female flowering, meaning that the ratio of female to male flowers is very heavily skewed towards just female flowers.
That's important because unlike many other purely gynoecious varieties, 'Samurai 252' doesn't need an additional pollinator variety in order to produce fruit. For commercial growers you can just grow Samurai 252 without having to worry about an additional pollinator. And for home gardeners you can just plant it in your garden and it will produce fruit without having to worry about having other varieties nearby to provide pollen to the female flowers.
Here at our Research Farm in Albion, Maine, it is almost the end of August, but it's been a very dry year. Unlike other places in the country, we haven't gotten much Downy Mildew yet. However, this is the third or fourth year in a row that we've trialed this variety here on our Research Farm, as well as with partners in Massachusetts and Florida and the southern United States more generally. And we found that the resistance it has to Downy Mildew is really among the highest out there.
Unlike many downy mildew resistant varieties that tend to compromise their yield for resistance to the disease, this variety, even without Downy Mildew, is still incredibly high yielding. And the quality of the fruit is really nice as well. You can see it's smoother; it's not the slightly more traditional spinier fruit, but instead smooth, dark, and the shape of it maintains a really nice length to diameter ratio, really nice cylindrical shape, even when it gets too big.
For me, this would be too big to pick, but you can see that it's still a really nice looking cucumber. It hasn't gotten bulb shaped or lumpy. B ecause it has such a nice uniform shape at different sizes, it gives you a wider window of picking and a little bit more flexibility as a grower.
Learn more about 'Samurai 252' …