Morphological characterization of the cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) collection of the COMAV’s Genebank

The cucumber ( Cucumis sativus L.) is an important crop worldwide. In the present study the morphological characterization of 206 cucumber accessions, 195 from Spain and 11 outgroups from other countries, was carried out. One hundred and seventy-eight of them came from the COMAV’s Genebank, 116 collected by the COMAV and the others 62 maintained at this institution as safety duplicates of the BGHZ collection. Seventeen more accessions supplied by BGHZ were included in the present research. Five plants per accession were characterized, with 17 qualitative and nine quantitative descriptors, eight of them referred to plant traits and 18 related to the fruit. Fruit descriptors were evaluated in at least 25 fruits per accession. The accessions were classified in five groups: ‘White’, ‘Short’, ‘French’, ‘Long’ and ‘Very long’, based on the morphology of their fruits and their similarity to commercial types. Principal Component Analysis showed that, with few exceptions, the accessions grouped to the previously established groups. Variability found among and within groups displayed the potential of these plant materials in breeding programs for different traits. The morphological characterization allowed the selection of the 67.2% of the collection, eliminating the most similar accessions.