Nickerson Zwaan cucumber breeders Cees Neefjes (left) and Zifu Yan (right) with one of Spains more famous cucumber growers

Participants in Almeria, Spain

Steve and Cath McArthur attended Nickerson-Zwaans Global Telegraph Cucumber Summit meeting held in Almeria (this region has close to 10,000 acres of cucumbers under cover) in Spain.

We were hosted in Spain by Nickerson-Zwaan distributors in Spain, Vilmorin; who arranged excellent visits to growers and packers as part of the 3 day summit which was attended by the NiZ cucumber breeding team and attracted participants from many countries including South Africa, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Australia, Serbia, Ukraine and New Zealand! 

• Approximately 7% of the world's vegetable acreage is planted in cucumbers.
• Asian, Japanese, Thai types make up the majority of the worlds cucumber acreage.
• Telegraph cucumbers make up only 1% of the total cucumber acreage.
• The main countries that produce telegraph cucumbers are Spain, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Greece, Canada and France.
• More telegraph cucumbers are produced under plastic than glass.
• The majority of telegraph cucumbers are produced in a non heated environment.

Nickerson Zwaan have an extensive breeding team dedicated to telegraph cucumbers; with the main breeding targets for improvements in fruit quality, yield, cold tolerance, disease and virus resistance. Their varieties have been very successful over many years in New Zealand.