I grew European seedless hybrid cucumbers from seeds in my greenhouse. They flourished and produced female flowering cukes at each axilla. Only three developed to produce cucumbers of good size and excellent flavour. All the other flowering axilla branches with small cukes on them have withered and died. What am I doing wrong?
Hmm, well it shouldn't have anything to do with fruit set being aborted because of lack of pollination - this variety doesn't seem to need pollination. Temperature or drought stress perhaps?
My wife bought the seeds on a trip to Austria, and all the instructions and info about the seeds were in German, so I was unable to interpret as do not read or speak German. BUT I wonder if the hybrid was one of the gynoecious hybrid cultivars which I understand produce all female blossoms, and require as far as I can determine an interplanted pollenizer. All the seed from seed packets germinated and produced healthy plants, but when transplanted to large growing containers 4 of them wilted and died, which I now realise could have been due to sudden transition from a warm rooting environment into a cold one. What ever, the cause, I wonder if the plants that died included pollenizing vines? I know nothing about growing this type of hybrid, do you? Pbh
No, sorry I don't have experience - I'm an apartment-dweller, so as much as I'd like to grow cucumbers, it's not practical. This is the bit from that site I was pointing out specifically, though, re: pollination:
pbh--how large are the containers? One possibility is that the plants have been limited by nutrients or simply root space. Also, any dry spell can cause the fruit to abort as you describe. It would be very important to know whether pollination is desirable/required or not. The fact that you did get some fruit should be a clue...would those 3 fruits have been pollinated do you suppose? Side note...keep an eye out for spider mites on greenhouse cukes...they are almost guaranteed and can devastate the plants this time of year. Pretty soon we'll be watching for powdery mildew, the other plague.
Growest, containers are 10 gallon size with only one vine growing in each container. Watering is by beta sensors, which only release water as demanded by soil moisture level. The plants are free of any insect infestations including spider mites, so insects are not the cause of the problem. I have not been consistent with weekly fertilizing, but doubt this is the cause of problem, especially as the growing containers were filled with a mix of one third veggie compost, one third potting soil, and one third peat moss. - PBH
