Cucumbers flower but flower dies - Knowledgebase Question

Oklahoma City, Ok
Avatar for jwoodcoair
Question by jwoodcoair
May 16, 2009
My cucumbers grow ok but when they flower the flower just wilts and dies and does not produce any cucumbers. I water daily and the leaves all look ok. Any ideas? I am stumped. All the tomatoes are doing great.
Thanks for your help


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Answer from NGA
May 16, 2009
Most squashes and cucumbers have separate male and female flowers on the same plant. So, to produce fruit, pollen from male flowers must be transferred to the female flowers.

How do you tell a male from a female squash or cucumber blossom? The female blossoms have what looks like a tiny squash or cucumber below the flower. The tiny fruit is the ovary, full of eggs not yet fertilized via pollen from male flowers. Male blossoms have long-stalked stamens, each with pollen-filled anthers. Every pollen grain contains sperm nuclei, which fertilize the ovules in the female flowers.

Visiting bees and other types of insects provide the transfer of pollen from the male to the female blossoms. Don't worry if the earliest blooms on squash or cucumber plants fall off before they set any fruit. The male flowers of cucumbers and squash often bloom and wither before the female blossoms start appearing.

So be patient with squash and cucumber plants. Eventually, most will produce both male and female flowers. Once blossoms of both sexes are opening at the same time and there is still no fruit formation, there may be poor pollination.

Sometimes Mother Nature needs help. If you have a shortage of pollinators, you can transfer pollen from male to female blossoms with a small watercolor paintbrush.

Research has shown that growing cilantro, yarrow, wild buckwheat, white sweet clover, tansy, sweet fennel, sweet alyssum, spearmint, Queen Anne's lace, hairy vetch, flowering buckwheat, crimson clover, cowpeas, common knotweed and caraway attract natural pollinators and other beneficial insects including natural predators to gardens.


Avatar for Andesteel
A comment from Andesteel
August 17, 2021
So what happens when I never get female flowers?

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