How vital is the cucumber you eat?

Have you ever wondered what the cucumber in your shopping basket is like in its skin? Probably not. Yet there are scientists researching exactly this. With surprising results.

At the University of Basel, scientists are researching the vitality of cucumbers. They examine to what extent factors such as pesticides, soil type, full soil or not, the environment, transport and storage influence the crop. Possibly the results could also provide information on other crops. One of the researchers is Dutch Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens. Change Inc. spoke to her about the project during cucumber time.

Why cucumbers?

It was specifically chosen to do this research with cucumbers because of their self-healing ability. Doesburg-van Kleffens explains: "Cucumbers are known to be able to grow back together after they have been cut. Slice healing, we call it. Zucchinis and pumpkins, for example, also do this. If you cut a cucumber into pieces and place them against each other, after a while they become one again. However, you can still clearly see where it was cut." This phenomenon makes the cucumber very suitable to use for this research.

Vitality

"A partnership with research groups from Denmark, Germany and Switzerland is doing a series of studies. We want to see if there are differences in vitality between regularly grown cucumbers, organic cucumbers and biodynamically (see box) grown cucumbers," says the researcher." The term vitality is widely used in the biodynamic movement to indicate the quality of crops and products. Doesburg-van Kleffens: "The definition of vitality includes the integration of growth and ripening - think of the Italian sun-ripened tomato, versus the tasteless watery large Dutch chest tomato as an extreme example. Vitality also manifests itself as resilient animals and plants that can take a beating."

Organic and biodynamic

Organic food production takes into account the environment and animal welfare as much as possible. Organic does not use chemical pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified organisms. Biodynamic agriculture (BD) also meets the standards for organic agriculture, but goes a step further. For this agriculture there are additional requirements and entirely unique principles. The basis of BD agriculture is formed by the soil. Crops are always grown in the open ground. Companies that produce in the BD way have a closed cycle system. This applies to the resources used, but a BD farmer also considers the cycle of the year. Another important feature of BD agriculture is open pollination. This involves the most natural way of breeding: developing a seed stable variety. No artificial methods are used, such as interbreeding in plant species that are naturally cross-pollinators.

Procedure

That vitality is examined as follows. "We have a special device," explains the researcher, "a kind of guillotine with 21 blades, with which we cut the cucumbers into 22 slices in one go. Then we wrap them tightly in foil. The cucumbers also get another protective corrugated cardboard around them and then they go together in a special box, from which moisture can drip down. The whole thing then goes into an incubator with a temperature of 23.5 degrees Celsius for two weeks."

Drek

"When you take the cucumbers out after two weeks, you see big differences. One cucumber is totally drek and discolored and the other is still completely dark green and completely grown together. What we then do is clamp the cucumbers in a stand and hang weights on them. Do you know how many pounds such a cucumber grown together can hold? Sometimes as much as 4 to 8 pounds!"

864 cucumbers

Ultimately, more is being looked at than just the weight the cucumbers can hold. Color retention and the rotting process are also important markers that tell more about vitality. "We do eight experiments per country (Denmark, Germany and Switzerland) each with 36 cucumbers each time. So a total of 864 cucumbers. From the current study we don't have results yet, but from previous seasons we already know that organic and biodynamic cucumbers show better slice healing. Also, these cucumbers show less rotting. In this latest study, we are also trying to find clearer differences between organic and biodynamic. And the causes of that. Hopefully we will be able to tell more about that by the end of this year."

Blog