Cucumber

Cucumis sativus L.

The Southeast Asian cucumber was in East-West Seed's sights from the very beginning of the company.

Though heat-loving and popular in the markets of the region already, it was to take a decade of trials before breakthroughs were made. First, the Lanna-5 variety combined downy mildew resistance, longer shelf life, and earliness. This cultivar dominated the small fruited market overnight in the early 1990s. Another breakthrough came later in 1999, when East-West Seed introduced the Micro-C.

With its improvements to taste and shape, it is hugely popular to this day in supermarkets, loved by consumers as "finger-food".

 

Pichet Yamyen

Crop Breeding Manager

We’re looking to make developments in resistance to other biotic stresses to cucumbers too.”

 

Pichet has spent 16 years as part of the East-West Seed family. “Five years back we made major development in virus resistance with our cucumber variety Big Green,” an innovation which had significant impact to the market. “We’re looking to introduce it to more countries which have similar tropical conditions to what we have here.” Big Green, a hybrid variety, is bred specially for its resistance to the geminiviruses.

“Our focus is not only improved virus tolerance, but we’re looking to make developments in resistance to other abiotic stresses to cucumbers, too, like drought and climate challenges.”