Cucumbers are popular and high-value vegetable crops mainly marketed through local food markets for fresh consumption. Vegetable growers in Mississippi mainly operate on small to medium size farms. High value crops including tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers could be grown to increase competitiveness. Specialty cucumber cultivars including the parthenocarpic and mini types are in high demand due to their superior eating quality, these are often produced in protected environments like high tunnels or greenhouses. The objective of this study is to evaluate specialty cucumber cultivars and identify cultivars for superior yield and quality in the local climate under protected culture. This study was conducted in a high tunnel production system located at Mississippi State University through two growing seasons in 2022 and 2023. Twenty cucumber cultivars were evaluated including ten long Dutch/English slicer types: ‘Asteroid Long’, ‘Bologna Long’, ‘Boncanale Long’, ‘Davida Long’, ‘Durance Long’, ‘Georgia’, ‘Kasja Long’, ‘Tyria Long’, ‘Verdon Bio Long’, ‘Verdon Long’; five mini types: ‘Jawell Mini’, ‘Katrina’, ‘Manar Mini’, ‘Picolino’, ‘Socrates’; and four Asian types: ‘Itachi’, ‘Nokya’, ‘Unagi’, ‘Wokue’. The last cultivar ‘Striped Armenian’ is not a true cucumber and is actually part of the melon family. Plants were grown in 6-gallon containers using a modified drop line trellis system. Plant vegetative growth that was measured included plant height, stem diameter as well as soil plant analysis of development (SPAD). Cucumber fruits were harvested twice weekly, weighed for individual fruit weight, counted, and separated into marketable yield and unmarketable yield. Various fruit quality characteristics including: fruit diameter, fruit length, skin color, soluble solids content and fruit firmness were collected twice in each growing season. Cultivars varied in marketable and unmarketable yields in both growing seasons. In 2022, the cultivar ‘Picolino’ produced the highest marketable yield of 4.79 kg per plant with a majority of the other cultivars having statistically similar marketable fruit yields ranging from 2.87 kg in ‘Unagi’ to 4.75 kg in ‘Katrina’. The lowest marketable yield was produced by ‘Striped Armenian’ with 2.05 kg of marketable fruit for the entire growing season. Fruit quality parameters including soluble solids content, firmness, and fruit length had significant differences between cultivars. The cultivar ‘Kasja Long’ produced fruits with the highest soluble solids content of 4.18 °Brix, the other cultivars in this study had values ranging from 2.47 °Brix to 4.12 °Brix. The cultivars ‘Itachi’ and ‘Socrate’ produced the firmest fruit with values of 6.75 N and 6.70 N, respectively.
