How to pollinate cucumbers at home manually and whether

Growing crops in a greenhouse involves artificial pollination of cucumbers. There are several ways, each of which works to a certain extent.

How to pollinate cucumbers at home

To grow a good crop in a greenhouse, you must definitely monitor how the plants are pollinated. For the convenience of many summer residents, there are self-pollinated cucumbers. They are called parthenocarpic. But most varieties are insect pollinated. Therefore, you should help them with pollination. In open ground, this is done by insects, wind.

How to pollinate cucumbers in a greenhouse, this question is of interest to many summer residents, because the harvest depends on high-quality pollination.

There are several ways to pollinate:

Attracting insects.
Hand pollination.

Attracting insects

The basis of the method is to attract bees to the greenhouse. Plants are sprayed with a sweet solution.

For this you will need:

Warm water 1l.
Honey, sugar or jam 1 tbsp. spoon.
Boric acid 0.1 gr.

It is necessary not only to attract the smell, but also to help get into the greenhouse. To do this, open windows and doors. The main thing is not to the detriment of the room temperature and humidity.

If possible, you can have a whole family of bees. Arrange the hive so that it stands at a height of 40 cm, and is well warmed in the morning sun.Insects must be well oriented, for a start they should get used to the environment. They are released into a warm greenhouse when there is nothing there yet. Over time, the bee colony will begin its work.

During the flowering of natural honey plants, they need to ensure flight outside the greenhouse. To do this, a small window is made in the lid, it must be bleached around, this will help the bees to find their way back to the hive more easily.

If cucumbers are grown in early spring, then a house with bees is placed in a greenhouse. If in warmer times, then the hive is left on the street, pressed close to the wall of the greenhouse, providing them with an unhindered entrance. The hole made in the wall is combined with the entrance to the hive. So insects will fly around the greenhouse, fly out of it into the street, through the window on the roof.

The difference between male and female flowers

If there is no way to attract insects, then cucumbers pollinate themselves. The main thing here is to deal with the flowers on the plant. There are male and female. It is not difficult to distinguish them from each other.

The male flower has no pistil, but it has a lot of pollen. If you shake it lightly, it forms a whole cloud. They are located closer to the base of the stem and are most often grouped in several pieces.

The female flower contains a pistil. It is located most often on the side shoots. It differs from the inflorescences of the opposite sex in that it contains a slight thickening that resembles a small cucumber.

Conditions for fruitful pollination

To pollinate a plant, you need to follow certain requirements:

The percentage of humidity in the greenhouse must be taken into account. No more and no less than 70%. At higher humidity, pollen sticks together, at low humidity it dries quickly.
Self-pollination is best done in the early morning or maximum before lunch, no later than.
Female flowers are ready for pollination on the 2nd day. Therefore, the process is carried out on the second day, so it is more likely that the process will be carried out correctly and fruitfully.
If it is supposed to carry out varietal pollination, then the female flowers, before pollination, are closed from unwanted penetration of insects into them.
Those flowers that were self-pollinated should be marked somehow. To make sure everything went right.

Manual method

Pollination of cucumbers in a greenhouse by hand, a difficult method, but effective.

Two important pollination rules:

There should be a lot of pollen.
It is best to take pollen from one plant and use it to pollinate flowers from another bush.

Following all the necessary requirements, any summer resident will be successful.

The first way, you can pollinate with a regular brush. To do this, the pollen is very carefully removed from the male inflorescence and transferred to the female flower immediately on the pistil. Then you should cover the pollinated flower. You can use cotton wool or other improvised materials for this.

The brush must be made of natural bristles, preferably very soft. In order not to damage the delicate flowers of cucumbers.

Second way, male flower. It can be used as a pollinator. To do this, it is carefully torn off, the petals are removed from it. Then it is placed in a female flower, you can leave it in it until the moment when the ovary grows. Several flowers are used.

It is recommended to pollinate cucumbers by hand several times during the week, then the result will be guaranteed. If the ovaries grow, the flowers are considered pollinated.

Self-pollinating varieties

Many summer residents do not like to grow cucumbers of self-pollinating species. This is due to the fact that they have an uncharacteristic taste for the culture, light stress can reduce the yield of the bush, plants are dependent on changes in external growing conditions.

But, despite this, pollinating the plants themselves is quite laborious, so gardeners buy hybrid varieties. Most often it is:

Zozulya.
Emelya.
German.
Millionaire.
Summer resident.
Dynamite.

Experienced gardeners advise using a specific planting pattern for cucumbers for growing in greenhouse conditions.The very first hybrids of self-pollinating varieties are planted. Most crops in a greenhouse should be plants that pollinate insects. The last to be planted are types of medium-ripening cucumbers.

Growing cucumbers in this way at home will protect the summer resident from crop loss.

Self Pollination Privileges

Although this procedure is not easy, many people use it when growing a crop in a greenhouse. Cucumbers subjected to manual pollination grow varietal. You can safely collect seeds from them without worrying about the future harvest.

Self-pollination makes it possible to obtain selected fruits. In terms of taste, they practically do not differ from those cucumbers that were grown in open ground. In addition, plants practically do not react to temperature changes, insufficient lighting and other signs that are unfavorable for their growth and development.

Presence of a large number of empty flowers

First of all, this is not appropriate agricultural technology, that is, something has been done wrong. There may be several reasons:

Seeds harvested last year.
Insufficient heating of seeds before planting.
Lack of light.
Plants too close together.

In order to remedy the situation, you can pinch the top of the plant. Thus, provoke him to develop side shoots. And the subsequent formation of female flowers on them.

Getting a good harvest from a crop is preceded by a large amount of work with plants. Self-pollination at home is no exception. But the work is worth it, cucumbers will surely thank the patient summer resident with their productivity.