Articles
THE CUCUMBER GROWING IN DENMARK
About 75% of all the cucumbers are sold by GASA, which is a selling organisation, consisting of 20 auction markets all over the country.
The bigest of these is GASA-Odense, where about 40% of all the danish cucumbers are sold.
Of the last 25%, the mainpart is sold on the Copenhagen Wholesale Market (KGT).
The glasshouse area with cucumbers is still decreasing.
In 1978 we had about 41 ha and this year, 1980, only about 34 ha.
The yield is about 11o fruits per m2 in good nurseries (the very best about 150) but the average for the whole industry only about 85 fruits per m2.
We prefer the fruits rather small, and that means, that the normal-and profitable – size is the 300–400 gram per piece.
The big fruits (i.e. more than 500 gram) are used only for industrial purposes and therefor paid badly.
The most common planting-time in Denmark is about 1st March.
The crop duration is in average 28 weeks from planting out.
After removing the cucumbers, the houses are used for another crop, mainly Poisettias.
We have investigated the economy in the cucumber crop and found, that most profit was obtained after 25–27 weeks of harvest in most holdings, but the variation is extremely big of course.
Our mainvariety last year was "Ingrid"(Bruinsma) and so it would have been this year, if it had been possible to get seeds enough.
But this was not the case, and therefore Evadan (Bruinsma) got to be the mainvariety in 1980. This variety, however, need much more labour than "Ingrid", and therefore we expect "Ingrid" to be the 1981-variety in