Growing and having cucumber plants in your garden is wonderful. You will most likely get enormous results when you know what you are doing. Yet, in some cases, you may stumble with no male flowers on a cucumber plant, which is frustrating.

 

The reasons behind no male flowers on cucumber plants could be one of three. Either the conditions are too tough, or you have seedless cucumber plant, or you have a hybrid cucumber type which is called gynoecious.

 

Additionally, if you are looking to solve this issue, and how to increase your cucumber production with or without male flowers, stay still and you will find everything you need while dealing with this issue. Without any other delays, let’s go:

 

 

1 Is it ok to have no male flowers on a cucumber plant?

Like we mentioned previously, having no male flowers on cucumbers could be for a lot of reasons. For example, if you have a seedless cucumber type that is known as Parthenocarpic types. Having this type in your garden with no male flowers in it will be totally normal, because this type does not require any pollination process to happen.

 

In the meanwhile, if you are too sure that you have a normal or standard type, in this case heirloom variety which is considered monoecious plants which refer to the fact that this kind of plants grow both male and female flowers in the same plant. The two types are interrelated with each other. In other words, if one is missing, you will not get any cucumber fruit production, which is not a good sign that indicates there is an issue that must be solved.

 

Lastly, when you have gynoecious types in your garden and notice few to none of male flowers on cucumbers, you should be aware that this is related to the plant’s genetics. There is no wrong with your caring and the growing conditions, but having not enough or none of male flowers is considered a problem, because the fruits need to be pollinated.

 

As you can see, the only case that is ok to have no male flowers on cucumber plants is when you are growing seedless cucumbers. Otherwise, you must observe and know the variety you are growing, and then you can move to the next step…

2 Can you encourage male flowers on cucumbers to be produced?

When there is a problem of no male flowers on cucumber plants, you start to think that you can encourage male flowers to be produced. This can be done only when you are growing heirloom variety (standard). Otherwise, you cannot expect to provoke a gynoecious type because it is not in its genetics in the first place.

 

When you want to encourage male flowers production on heirloom variety, you should consider first to provide the perfect conditions that any cucumber plant will like and thrive within. You must provide the right soil, the best temperature, the watering……and so on.

 

The second thing to consider is to make sure that your soil does not contain too much nitrogen. Nitrogen is known for provoking foliage and leaf growing. If the energy of the cucumber plant goes into the road of leaf production, there will be no energy left to produce flowers, which is crucial because flowers are necessary for fruit production.

 

Instead, you can solve this by providing and playing with a fertilizer that contains enough phosphorus in it. Phosphorus provokes flower and blossom production. Having it in your soil will be a wise choice and action on your behalf, so make sure to do it.

 

But, what if you are growing into a gynoecious type, is there something you can do or you are doomed. To know more follow ahead…

 

3 How to solve the issue of no male flowers on cucumber plants?

For further explanation, follow the story of Linda, an amateur gardener who does the growing in her spare time.

As Linda got back from her work, she took a nice cold shower and grabbed her glass of juice and headed to favorite seat in her garden. As she was enjoying the beautiful view of colorful flowers and the smash of cool wind on her face, she noticed right away on her left side that her cucumber plant had no male in it.

 

She said in wonder, “oh no, is there something missing that caused this issue?” Then she began to supervise her plant. Yet, she didn’t find out what’s going on.

 

Afterward, she googled it on her phone, and right away she identified that she had a gynoecious type. This type is known for few male flower production. Yet, this cucumber plant still needs male flowers in order to pollinate all these female flowers.

 

At that exact moment, she remembered that her neighbor is also growing a cucumber plant in her backyard. Right away she headed to her, explained her issue, and then, her neighbor gave her several male flowers from her own cucumber plant and showed her how to pollinate them.

 

Following her neighbor’s instructions, she did exactly as she told her, finished pollinating all the female flowers with taking into consideration that one male flower can pollinate 4 female flowers.

 

After 4 days had passed from that day, she started to notice her work was giving the results she wanted. The growing cucumbers have gotten bigger and bigger. She thanked her neighbor and Linda has learned her lesson to take precaution in the future, and those are…..

  

4 precautions to do when you have no male flowers on cucumbers:

 

From all the above, when you face such a problem, you want to take your precaution to prevent you getting into an irrational situation where you start running all over the place to solve it. Such actions can play a huge role in successful plant growing and fruit production, especially in the cucumber case situation. Here’s what you can do:

 

1. Provide the optimal growing conditions for cucumber plants such as soil, water, sunlight, temperature.
2. Do not let your cucumber face rough weather conditions such as strong rain or powerful wind strikes. This can only be harmful to your plant and it will be lost in all aspects, not only flower loss.

 

3. Make sure the soil does not contain too much nitrogen.
4. Make sure that you are providing a good fertilizer that contains phosphorus, which will help for blossom production. Ensure to apply before planting, and also just before blossom time.

 

5. Use trellis to let the air circulate between your cucumber leaves and stems. This will help pollinators to find the flowers and make the pollination even easier and possible.
6. If you are growing a gynoecious type, consider growing a standard cucumber variety (heirloom). This action will allow for this type to be pollinated from the male flowers that heirloom has.

 

 

On the other side, Linda. She did exactly these steps in her next growing season. As she faced this issue and had a hard time, she also gained experience from it. This experience has its role in the future, and for sure she will never suffer from ever again, and so could you also.

 

Conclusion:

To sum up, the reasons why you have no male flowers on a cucumber plant are most likely growing a seedless cucumber type, or you are growing a hybrid type (gynoecious), or you are growing an heirloom type but the conditions are not suitable or too rough on the plant.

 

Additionally, the male flowers are necessary in cucumber plants in both heirloom and gynoecious type, because they need them for fruit production. In the meanwhile, having a Parthenocarpic type of cucumber plant without male flowers will be perfectly fine because they are not required in fruit production.

Equally important, to solve the issue of no male flowers in the standard type you have to provide perfect conditions, make sure the nitrogen is not too much in the soil, apply a fertilizer that consists of phosphorus in it to help with flower production, especially before cucumber blossoming.

 

Moreover, it is best to plant multiple cucumber varieties in the same site to eliminate any chance of no male flowers, because there will be collaborations between them if one of them miss what is needed for pollination, and overall, fruit production which is what you need after all.

 

Furthermore, if you like to know more about cucumbers and their ups and downs, enjoy reading our topics freely, happy gardening.