I have hand pollinated my cukes but they are still dying off

Question

I have hand pollinated my cukes but they are still dying off. What else could be the problem? They look great when starting off but almost overnight...they are gone. I don't have bee's but I've been very diligent about pollinating on a daily basis.

Answer 1

I'm sure that your diligence in performing the pollination process has been quite an education in the different flowers found and their role in producing fruit. However the physical transfer of pollen from male to female is only one of the necessary conditions for success. A very remote possibility is that you are using squash pollen from male flowers, but the difference in flower size would probably set off alarm bells so let's set that aside. You are using pollen from a known fresh source? Might be helpful to specify where the pollen comes from.

Some of the other conditions might be: a cucumber plant is rather like a clockwork mechanism - it needs its chemistry to be wound up before it will run properly. Usually this means about 4 weeks growing in good conditions before pollination will work. There might be an interim period where lots of male flowers and few females are produced, and as the plant gets more mature more females appear. Another factor is temperature and moisture conditions - if the weather gets hot or cold at the time of fertilization then the pollination may not take effect. Examine the female flowers carefully, is there a possibility that these have been minutely damaged, say by an insect, to deprive them of important parts?