Empty 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 soil fertilized with manure, abundant watering, long daylight hours and favorable air temperature for lashes and roots. If any of the requirements is violated, the plant ceases to bear fruit and is abundantly covered with male flowers. If you constantly create stressful situations for cucumbers, then the lashes not only stop producing, but also dry out early.
Proper care allows you to get crops 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 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 a specialized fertilizer intended for cucumbers should be applied to the ground. Then the balance between nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium will be maintained, which will allow the plant not only to grow, but also to bear fruit.
Constant foliar and root top dressing accelerates the growth of lateral lashes, and this helps to improve the process of female flower ovary in cucumbers.
Biofertilizers are used for multiple top dressing, which can increase yields.
When choosing purchased seeds, preference should be given to varieties of the female type of flowering. They form a whole bunch of fruits, which allows you to get a high yield from 1 m² with enough nutrition. Hybrids and varieties prone to female flowering have positive characteristics in terms of taste and appearance. Such products are good not only fresh, but also salted.
Cucumber seeds can remain viable for a long time. The longer they lie, the more female flowers will form on them.
Plants should be 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 thickening 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 good nutrition. It is recommended to add nutrient soil to the bare roots so that the plant can eat normally.
What to do to improve the harvest
If the soil and seeds were chosen correctly, then the abundance of empty flowers may be due to the characteristics of the growth of lateral buds.
It is recommended to pinch gourds on the 5th leaf so that the lash gives lateral shoots, on which female flowers begin to appear. If this is not done, then the side lashes will appear only after the main lash, covered with an empty flower, has fully grown.
Constant pinching of the tops increases the plant mass of cucumbers, but can cause dense plantings. This reduces the access of light, and the whips begin to dry out. At the same time, the number of male inflorescences increases on them. Hypothermia of the root system due to watering with cold water is a common cause of the abundance of barren flowers in cucumbers. If the water is colder than the soil, the plants will be under constant stress, which affects the yield. Water temperature for irrigation should be at least 25°C.
Excessive watering leads to waterlogging of the roots and their decay. If a lump of soil sticks together during compression, then there is a lot of moisture in the soil. You should temporarily stop watering and wait for the leaves to drop. After that, you need to water the plants sparingly. This stimulates the appearance of female flowers.
The air temperature in the greenhouse can also cause abundant flowering of the barren flower. In 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 ripened cucumbers are harvested every day, morning and evening. Then the nutrition of the whip will be evenly distributed to all newly formed ovaries, and they will grow rapidly.
