Hot summer is coming, refreshing and sweet dark green fruits and vegetables are deeply loved by consumers, among which the taste of Cucumber is unforgettable. Cucumber is rich in various nutrients and has always been regarded as a sacred product of health and beauty. Its refreshing and delicious taste makes Cucumber become the main food in summer, and the high temperature in summer is one of the important challenges in Cucumber breeding and research.

Cucumber mainly uses young fruit as food. However, in bad cultivation environment, insufficient nutrients or incomplete pollination, not only the fruit grows slowly, but also it is easy to cause abnormal growth, resulting in abnormal fruit, female flower ovary cannot grow or bitter taste. The yield of cucumber depends on the number of female flowers. In order to solve the cucumber varieties in high temperature and humidity environment in summer, it was resulted in fewer female flowers and higher abnormal fruits and so on. We collected different cucumber species and planted in this field for variety improvement, hoping to cultivate excellent cucumber varieties with good heat resistance, which can be cultivated in facilities, summer and even year round.

After years of research and development, a new variety "TSS No.3-Xia Mei" was finally introduced. "Xia Mei" is a hybrid generation, which is a heat-resistant variety and can be used for summer cultivation. Because it means "summer is beautiful", it was named "Xia Mei". Xia Mei is a new variety of Cucumber with gynoecious. Female flowers can bear fruit naturally without pollination. Each node bears 1-2 female flowers. The fruit shape is long and straight, the fruit color is dark green, and the fruit surface has the characteristics of fine grooves. The fruit length is 20-26 cm, the fruit width is 2.8-3 cm, and the average fruit weight is 126 grams. The raw fruit tastes excellent.

At present, the new variety of "Xia Mei" cucumber has completed the technology transfer and passed the application for variety right in March this year. It is hoped that this variety will be extended to major cucumber producing areas such as Pingtung, Kaohsiung, Changhua, Yunlin and Nantou in the future to provide more farmers with cultivation. We hope that the new variety of "Xia Mei" cucumber can not only overcome the challenge of environmental climate change with advanced breeding technology, but also have excellent fruit and vegetable quality, challenge the taste buds of consumers, and create a win-win situation of increasing farmers' income and consumers' enjoyment of high-quality agricultural products!

▲Pig、Cucumber TSS No3 plant(left) and fruit(right)