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Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try!

    Lobo
    Lobo
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    Posts : 28411
    Join date : 2013-01-12

    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Empty Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try!

    Post by Lobo Sun 21 Jun 2015, 4:15 pm

    [size=33]Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try![/size]
    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Male-and-female-cucumber-flowers-e1342207663101
    This well-pollinated cucumber plant is growing a new cucumber. The fruit comes from the female flower, pollinated by pollen transferred from a male flower, like the bright yellow one above. Ideally, pollen is transferred by bees, but if not, hand-pollination is an option.

    If you’re having trouble with pollination of your cucurbit plants, don’t give up. Give hand-pollination a try.
    Cucurbits (the family of plants including squashcantaloupewatermelonpumpkins, and cucumber) are notorious for having pollination problems. A short botanical lesson reveals why. Rather than having male and female parts in one flower, like a tomato plant does, cucurbits have separate male and female flowers on the same plant. That means pollen must be carried from one flower to another (male to female) in order for pollination to occur.
    Here’s a little more in-depth description of how cucurbits flower. The first flowers on a cucurbit are male, and these may remain on the plant for about a day before falling off. Sometimes, this falling scares gardeners, especially thosegrowing squash, because it seems like blooms are dropping and all is lost. But don’t fear, the female flowers come along soon, and they’re the ones that produce fruit. Female flowers show up on the plant usually a week or two after the male flowers start showing. After that, there should be both male and female flowers on the plant at any given time while the plant’s still blooming.
    You can distinguish male and female flowers a few ways. The easiest way is to look at where the stem meets the flower. On a female, this area will look like small fruit. Male flowers are typically shorter, don’t show immature fruit, and often appear in clusters. Here are a few examples of male and female flowers on cucurbits.
    First, a couple male flowers…
    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Bee-on-male-cucumber-flower-cluster
    A bee found its way to these male cucumber blooms. The cluster indicates they’re male.

    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Zucchini-male-flowers
    These are male flowers on a zucchini plant.

    And now for some females…
    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Cucumber-female-flower-fruit
    This is the female flower on a cucumber plant. See the immature fruit at the base, a clear indication of a female flower. This one has probably already been pollinated and the flower is starting to close.

    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Zucchini-female-flower-fruit
    This is the female flower of a zucchini plant. Due to good pollination, it’s producing a nice-sized zucchini.

    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Acorn-squash-female-flower-fruit
    This female flower is on an acorn squash plant.

    So here’s the trick. Cucurbits need cross-pollination from male to female flowers, but this requires a little more of nature, namely of the bees that pollinate our vegetables. If bees aren’t present for some reason (such as broad-spectrum pesticides being sprayed nearby or heat or rain keeping the bees under cover), then fruit either doesn’t appear or it appears small and shriveled up because it’s not well pollinated. At this point, human intervention is necessary. As we’ve been telling the many folks on the website who are seeing flowers but no fruit, you can try pollinating your cucurbits by hand. Here is a lesson in hand-pollination using my Straight Eight cucumber plant as our subject.
    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Pollinating-male-cucumber-flowers
    To hand-pollinate a cucumber, dip a paintbrush into the center of a male flower. Some gardeners use a cotton swab instead of a paintbrush.

    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Pollen-on-paintbrush
    The pollen sticks to the bristles on the paintbrush just as it would stick to the hairs on a bee’s body.

    Got Pollination Problems? Give Hand-Pollination a Try! Paintbrush-pollinating-female-cucumber-flower
    Transfer the pollen of the male flower from the paintbrush to the center of the female flower. That completes pollination by hand.

    The method of hand-pollination shown above should work well for all cucurbits. You also can remove male flowers and touch the anther (in the center of the male flower) to the female flower’s stigma (also in the center), or shake the male over the female, to transfer the pollen.
    For those of you with copious bees, congrats! (I am thankful to be one of these people at the moment.) For the rest of you, I hope hand-pollination helps you have a great harvest of cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and squash. Happy growing!

      Current date/time is Tue 05 Nov 2024, 3:41 pm