A new gardening question of the day appears every day of the year on the front page of Almanac.com. Below is the answer to one of the questions from our Gardening Questions and Answers Archive where you can find over 400 more gardening questions (with answers!).
What makes a Kirby cucumber burpless?
Kirby cucumbers, like other greenhouse cucumbers, are milder than garden grown slicing or pickling cucumbers. As a result, to some people they seem to be easier to digest, resulting in less burping. The greenhouse cucumbers now known as "Kirby-type" were developed to produce fruit parthenogenically, that is, without pollination of the flowers. Thus, Kirby-type would produce fruit in a greenhouse. The Kirby's have no seeds, a very tender skin, and a distinctive long, slender shape. The selection process that resulted in the seedless, thin-skinned cucumbers also selected out some of the compounds that produced the digestion problems. Nowadays, the easy-to-digest qualities of the Kirby-type cucumbers have been re-selected by plant breeders. Home gardeners can choose from a number of seed sources for burpless cucumbers. Look for varieties that are long and slender with solid dark green skins.
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