Predictors of shelf life in long English cucumber

Variation in shelf life of greenhouse-grown 'Mustang' cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) fruit was enhanced by preharvest experimental treatments of fruit thinning and fruit shading. Treatments also affected the dynamics of fruit elongation, fruit color at harvest, and chlorophyll fluorescence of the pericarp. Fruit color (grey level) at harvest, as measured by image analysis, had the highest simple (positive) correlation with shelf life. Rapid elongation and high photochemical quenching of fluorescence also characterized fruit having longer shelf life. The ability to predict cucumber yellowing is improved using a multiple regression approach, but prediction achieved by the best subset model is still too low to segregate commercially fruit having a short shelf life.