Barren flower on cucumbers in a greenhouse: what to do to make the plant bear fruit for a long time and actively form female flowers?
Cucumbers are melon plants that love fertile soils fertilized with manure, abundant watering, long daylight hours and air temperatures favorable for vines and roots. If any of the requirements is violated, the plant stops bearing fruit and becomes abundantly covered with male flowers. If you constantly create stressful situations for cucumbers, then the vines not only stop producing fruit, but also dry out early.
Proper care allows you to obtain harvests for a long time in a greenhouse.
Selecting Seeds and Soil to Prevent Barren Flowering
To avoid the appearance of barren flowers in the greenhouse, it is necessary to create all the conditions for fruiting when choosing seeds and soil. If it is not possible to use mullein as a fertilizer for a cucumber bed in a greenhouse, then you should add a specialized fertilizer intended for cucumbers to the ground. Then a balance will be maintained between nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which will allow the plant not only to grow, but also to bear fruit.
Constant foliar and root feeding accelerates the growth of lateral vines, and this helps to improve the process of ovary of female flowers in cucumbers.
Biofertilizers are used for repeated fertilizing, which can increase productivity.
When choosing purchased seeds, preference should be given to varieties of the female flowering type. They form a whole bunch of fruits, which allows you to get a high yield from 1 m² with sufficient nutrition. Hybrids and varieties prone to female flowering have positive characteristics in taste and appearance. Such products are good not only fresh, but also when pickled.
Cucumber seeds can remain viable for a long time. The longer they lie, the more female flowers will form on them.
Plants should be located at a distance of 25 cm from each other - then each cucumber will have enough light, moisture and nutrition to form a fertile crown. The initial density of plantings often causes abundant flowering of male flowers.
The roots of the cucumber are located on the surface, and frequent watering exposes them. This deprives the whip of adequate nutrition. It is recommended to sprinkle nutritious soil on the exposed roots so that the plant can feed normally.
What to do to improve the harvest
If the soil and seeds were chosen correctly, then the abundance of barren flowers may be due to the growth characteristics of the lateral buds.
It is recommended to pinch melon plants at the 5th leaf so that the vine produces lateral shoots, on which female flowers begin to appear. If this is not done, the side lashes will appear only after the main lash, covered with barren flowers, has fully grown.
Constantly pinching the tops increases the plant mass of cucumbers, but can cause the plantings to become crowded.This reduces the access to light, and the lashes begin to dry out. At the same time, the number of male inflorescences on them increases. Hypothermia of the root system due to watering with cold water is a common reason for the abundance of barren flowers in cucumbers. If the water is colder than the soil, the plants will be under constant stress, which will affect the yield. The water temperature for irrigation should be at least 25°C.
Excessive watering leads to waterlogging of the roots and their rotting. If a lump of soil sticks together when compressed, then there is a lot of moisture in the soil. You should temporarily stop watering and wait until the leaves fall. After this, you need to water the plants moderately. This stimulates the appearance of female flowers.
The air temperature in the greenhouse can also cause abundant flowering of barren flowers. During the hot season, you need to ventilate the greenhouse so that the air in it does not exceed 35°C.
The harvest will be higher if ripe cucumbers are harvested every day, morning and evening. Then the nutrition of the lash will be evenly distributed to all newly formed ovaries, and they will grow rapidly.
