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Any vegetable grower knows what threatens the barren flowers on cucumbers: such plantings do not bring a crop. But not every gardener is familiar with the reasons why the ovaries and fruits are absent. To avoid a barren flower, you will have to follow the rules for caring for the variety. You need to start with the selection of planting material.
The barren flower problem occurs mainly on bee-pollinated varieties. The main way to deal with this situation less often is to acquire seeds of self-pollinating and parthenocarpic plants. The former have both a pistil and a stamen in the flower; for fertilization, they only need wind or a little intervention from a gardener. In parthenocarpic cucumbers, they grow without fertilization, and they do not have seeds.
Netherflower - this is, strictly speaking, a male flower, which is needed for dioecious varieties to fertilize female flowers. The male flower does not form ovaries, therefore the predominance of such parts should alert the gardener.
How to identify barren flowers on cucumbers? They differ in structure: anthers are visible inside the male flower. The female flower has a mother plant, an elongated light green part, reminiscent of a small cucumber. This is where the ovary is formed. The barren flower has only a leg, and there is no characteristic thickening.
The more female flowers on a bush, the higher its yield. The first mistake in dealing with barren flowers is to remove them cleanly. This leads to a complete loss of yield, since male flowers are also involved in fruiting. For stable fruit ripening, both male and female flowers are required in approximately equal proportions.
In addition, female flowers turn out to be empty - if they do not get pollen.
There are several reasons for the predominance of barren flowers in heterosexual varieties, all of them are associated either with poor-quality planting material or with errors in care.
Why do barren flowers grow on the site:
If the cucumbers are blooming empty, take a closer look at them. Several signs clearly point to the source of the problem. For example, thickened plantings are immediately determined.
Netherflowers are more likely to occur if the seeds are purchased from an unofficial supplier or harvested by hand from your or a neighbor's plot. To get one hundred percent harvest, trust only trusted sellers.
Not every cucumber is suitable for collecting seeds - irregularly shaped fruits (small, curved, rounded) are absolutely not suitable.
A large number of barren flowers are produced by the male cucumber, so the seeds are collected only from the female fruit. How to tell if a cucumber is male or female? They differ in the shape of the fetus: the female has four faces, the male has three.
Seeds planted too early do not bear fruit. Good shoots will appear after four years of aging of seeds taken from a female cucumber. In the absence of an alternative, planting material 2-3 years old is also suitable.
Advice! The planting material from the manufacturer has already been treated with protective and stimulating substances. If the seeds are harvested by hand, it is recommended to prepare them for planting: soak them for half an hour in a weak solution of potassium permanganate (disinfection), dry them for a month next to a heat source, immediately before sowing, treat them with stimulants, for example, Zircon.
So that fewer barren flowers appear on the bushes in the open field, the care is adjusted. The five main methods for restoring crops are watering, eliminating the effects of heat, protecting from the cold, introducing nutrients and thinning the plantings.
Cucumbers are moistened with strictly warm water not lower than + 20-25 degrees. The plant suffers from cold water.
If, at the time of the beginning of flowering, the dominance of barren flowers is found in cucumbers, such a technique is carried out: stop watering for a while. Moisture-loving cucumbers react to this with a sharp release of female flowers. In extreme conditions, the main task of a cucumber is to leave offspring. When the ovaries appear, the watering regime must be restored.
The abundance of masculine flowers can be caused by high temperatures. If the heat is above +27 degrees, the pollen is sterilized and the ovaries do not appear. Excessive heat also occurs in greenhouses.
It is difficult to solve this problem outdoors, but there is a proven way to reduce the negative effects of heat: increase the frequency of watering up to twice a day, morning and evening. To preserve moisture, the soil is mulched with hay and straw. With the restoration of comfortable heat, watering is reduced to normal - once every 3-4 days.
Female flowers will not appear with a prolonged cold snap. Ovaries should not be expected below +15 degrees. How to save your street cucumber crop in a bad season: Stop watering. The method is similar to the first, the bush will begin to form female flowers.
If the bushes are actively growing green mass, they were obviously overfed with nitrogen. With an excess of this element, the influx of nutrients is redirected from the ovaries to the shoots and leaves. The cucumber simply will not form female flowers, since there is no need for this: the plant is already comfortable.
How to properly feed cucumbers on the site:
How to water cucumbers to reduce the amount of barren flowers? Organics are well accepted, various additives and mineral complexes are used:
Closely planted cucumbers develop slowly, female flowers on them form inactively, and if they do, they quickly wither and fall off without ovaries. Even if female-type flowers are visible among the barren flowers, their pollination will be difficult due to excessive bushiness.
You need to think about the density of plantings when placing seedlings on the site. The minimum spacing between bushes is 25-30 cm, and 70 cm between rows.
The overgrowth is controlled with pinching main lash - the procedure stops growth and stimulates the formation of lateral branches. It is on these shoots that more female flowers are formed. For early cucumbers, pinching is done after the appearance of 8-10 leaves, for later - 6-8.
If all the conditions of planting and care are met, but for some reason the bees are in no hurry to pollinate the cucumbers, they proceed as follows: they pluck the barren flower and process the stigma of a female flower with a corolla. It is better to take 2-3 male flowers for one ovary. Another way is to attract insects by spraying the bush with honey solution.
Removing male flowers entirely is a gross mistake. Reducing the number of barren flowers is a challenge for the gardener. To do this, it is necessary to restore the conditions for comfortable growing, and the appearance of female flowers will not be long in coming. Help the plant so that it will thank you with a bountiful and tasty harvest.
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