Climatic Risk of Field Cultivation of Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L) in Poland

The goal of the present work was to separate zones of pickling cucumber field cultivation in Poland according to the various degrees of climatic risk The study used 40 years of (1966 2005) data from 28 experimental stations of the Research Centre for Cultivar Testing The data characterised the course of the growth development cucumber crop productivity and also the agrotechnical dates Additionally the work considered agrometeorological data of 7 development stages of the analysed plant sunshine duration soil temperature at a height of 5 cm air temperature at a height of 2 m and 5 cm above ground level and atmospheric precipitation The agrometeorological data was collected from 53 meteorological stations in the Polish network of the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management Weather yield regression equations were used to determine unfavourable agiometeoroloycal elements which is the best way to determined the quantity of the cucumber total and marketable yield The highest climatic risk of pickling cucumber field cultivation occurred in about 7% of Poland s area This is the area covering the southwestern southeastern the northern and northeastern parrs of the country In these areas very high occurrence frequency of agrometeorological elements was noted These elements were air and sod temperatures that were too low during the whole growing season and too short of a duration of the period without frost lasting <= 120 days