Starting a cucumber adaptation project in southeast NH for bacterial wilt resistance.
Species: Cucumber, Cucumis sativus
Adaptation: Trying to find bacterial wilt resistance from cucumber beetles
Location Dandelion Forest Farm, Nottingham, NH Zone 6B
Planting:
Scheme A -75 row feet of a cultivated mounded bed in a single row. Direct sown seeds planted every 2-3” with 7’ t-posts, florida weave. Not irrigated. In the same bed are summer squash, ground cherries, and nepitella. Half row feet will be weeded, at planting. The other half will have a ground cover of sheep sorrel and clover with a furrow cut through the middle.
Scheme B -mowed meadow with mulch hay mounds every 4’ direct sow 8 seeds per mound, 60 mounds. Not irrigated. Plan to add grass clippings through the season.
Varieties:
Selected for grexes/landraces, some with disease resistance
Uprising Seeds: Persian Cucumber Cengelkoy, Sweet Marketmore, Silver Slicer,
Experimental Farm Network: Lofthouse Landrace Cuke mostly greens, South Wind Slicer Cuke, Bhutan Meets Greg Grex, Dual Purpose Pickling Grex, Long Cucumber Grex
Fruition Seeds: Shintokiwa
Common Wealth Seeds: Shandong Si Gua 1210, Southwind Slicing
Adaptive Seeds: Poinsett 76, Mideast Peast
Going to Seed 2025 Mix
Selection Criteria: Survival
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Mixing up all of the seeds may have been my favorite part of this project! Good bye named varietals, hello genetic diversity. We put down piles of mulch in April 22nd (these are future honeyberry sites but I am trying to fit in a bonus cucumber crop). May 28th direct seeded 8 seeds per mound, 60 mounds.
May 30th, direct seeded a 75’ row of seeds 2-3” apart in a cultivated bed on the south side of overwintered garlic, not irrigated.
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June 4th germination, maybe 80% in the meadow mounds.
This is June 8th germination for the cultivated bed on the side with no ground cover.
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June 27th, young seedlings getting bigger leaves in the cultivated row and the meadow. It has been pretty warm -80s with some rain. On the downside, our mower broke so we are unable to mow and add clippings to the meadow mounds until it is fixed…
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July 10th, first signs of bacterial wilt damage from cucumber beetles. It seems like a moderate level of beetles out this season compared to so many last season. I have also seen a handful of leaves with squash beetle eggs. Perhaps due to proximity of the cucumbers to summer squash which have a lot of squash beetle eggs. I have scouting and squishing the squash beetle eggs.
But many of the plants look good. We are helping the cucumbers get up on the trellis.
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July 17, first cucumber fruit! Lots of fat bumblebees helping us with pollination. The weather has been pretty hot and dry in the 90s which is unusual for this time of year.
The meadow mounds are not looking so good with the heat and no rain. The grass is starting to take over…I tried to pull some grass back but it’s pretty labor intensive.
July 25th, most of the plants in the cultivated row are doing well, setting a handful of fruits. Anything that has died back from wilt I’m pulling out and removing from the area. Looking a little bit stressed from no rain.
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Aug 27th, more than half of the plants have died back from wilt. Some still have fruits. I picked 10 of the earliest fruits immature as I am looking for bacterial wilt resistance. The rest I am leaving to go to seed. A dozen plants are still hanging in there but it seems like past peak already. I picked 20 very yellow and bloated looking cucumbers and processed them for the first round of seed. I scraped their seeds into a big bowl and will let ferment for a few days before drying.
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I will also add that overall, this has been an unusually hot and dry summer for us. The last two seasons have been inches of rain at single rain events. We haven’t had rain since early July and it has been in the 90s until mid August. Now it is consistently highs of 70sF and lows of 50s. I used a hose to irrigate the cultivated bed a handful of times in August. All but 10 plants in the meadow mounds have survived with 3 starting to set fruit. I am glad to have planted this project in two locations.
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