Tags: Certified Organic Open Pollinated

Growing Practices: No Pesticides No Herbicides No Fungicides No Synthetic Fertilizers

Latin Name: Cucumis sativus

Days to Maturity: 56 days

Description:

New Release - Developed by Edmund Frost for Common Wealth Seed Growers.
Our new downy mildew resistant pickling cucumber! Sweet, aromatic, crisp and thin-skinned, these are great for fresh eating as well as pickling - even when picked on the large side. Bred to grow well in the late season when downy mildew pressure is high, they also thrive when planted early. The vigorous, strong and forgiving plants tolerate bacterial wilt, and there is a low incidence of misshapen fruits when plants are stressed. Abundantly productive over a long window. Stem ends are never bitter. Edmund is continuing to refine this variety. 47 seeds/gram. Grown by Twin Oaks Seed Farm.

These seeds and their offspring are open-source, and not available for private intellectual property ownership. Pass on these words when you pass on the seeds!

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Story of this Seed:

(by Edmund Frost)
I've been working on this cucumber at Twin Oaks Seed Farm / Common Wealth Seed Growers since 2015. Since 2013 if you count variety trials.
We started with an initial cross between two cucumbers that stood out in our 2014 downy mildew trial - one from China and one from the Philippines. I made a selection from this population in 2016 under heavy downy mildew and bacterial wilt pressure, and managed to cross that plant to an American pickling cucumber. Selection from the resulting three-way cross started in late 2017 (we can grow two generations of cucumbers to seed here in a growing season).
The resulting population had a lot of diversity, and is the foundation for our new South Wind Slicer as well as Common Wealth Pickler. We received grants from Organic Farming Research Foundation in 2018 and 2019 for cucumber research and breeding work. The 2014 trial happened with SARE funding. Read more about all this on our research page: Commonwealthseeds.com/research.
Thanks and Acknowledgement to:
-Indigenous and peasant farmers and communities in China, the Philippines and many other places whose brilliant work over so many generations created the parent cucumber varieties used in this project. My hope is to be one small, good part of this whole story.
-Kathy Reitsma and others at North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, Iowa (they maintain the cucumber collection for the USDA germplasm bank).
-Adam Call and Todd Wehner from NC State for their work in "Studies on Resistance to Downy Mildew in Cucumber" (2010). Results of this study largely informed the choices in our 2014 downy mildew trial where we identified what parents to use in this project.
-Michael Mazourek, organic plant breeder from Cornell, for support, guidance and encouragement throughout this project.
-Micaela Colley and Jared Zystro from Organic Seed Alliance.
-Bill Holdsworth for making the initial cross in the winter of 2015.
-Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) and Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SSARE).
-Jay Bost, Katie Ziemann, and Gabe Sachter-Smith for doing seed increases and re-combinations in Hawaii over the winters of 2019, 2020 and 2021.