Detailed Guide to Cucumber Greenhouse Management in Winter and Spring
Cucumber, (scientific name Cucumis sativus Linn, English name Cucumber), a plant of the genus Cucumis in the Cucurbitaceae family. Also called hu gua and qing gua. The fruit is oily green or emerald green in color, with soft small spines on the surface. It is widely cultivated throughout China and is now widely grown in temperate and tropical regions. Cucumber prefers warmth and cannot tolerate cold, and is one of the main greenhouse products. Cucumber was brought back to the Central Plains by Zhang Qian during the Western Han Dynasty when he was sent on a mission to the Western Regions, and was called hu gua. During the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms period, Shi Le, emperor of the Later Zhao, tabooed the character "hu," and the Han official Fan Tan, administrator of Xiangguo Commandery, changed it to "huang gua."
The food value of cucumber
Cucumber tastes sweet, is sweet, cool in nature, bitter, and non-toxic, and enters the spleen, stomach, and large intestine; it has the effects of clearing heat, promoting water metabolism and urination, and clearing heat and detoxifying; it mainly treats thirst, sore and swollen throat, fire eyes, and fire and scald injuries. It also has a weight-loss effect.
Key points for cucumber greenhouse management in winter and spring
Key points for spring greenhouse cucumber management
Carefully prepare the soil and apply organic fertilizer in separate layers. The roots and stems of cucumber seedlings have a high water content and are relatively brittle and easy to break; they are afraid of waterlogging and cannot tolerate drought. Therefore, when preparing the soil, the ground surface should be level and slightly sloped to one side to facilitate drainage and irrigation, and the soil should be free of large clods and rich in organic matter. When plowing and harrowing, apply sufficient decomposed chicken manure and cake fertilizer in layers, with 5000 kg of chicken manure and 2000 kg of cake fertilizer per mu.
Soil disinfection and ridging with plastic mulch. The land in greenhouses has a high multiple-cropping index and a relatively high soil microbial load, so soil disinfection treatment should be done well. For each mu, 1.5 kg of fulvic acid salt or 0.75 kg of carbendazim wettable powder can be mixed with 5-7 kg of fine sand or fine soil and evenly spread on the plowed soil, then harrowed finely and ridged. When ridging, use wide and narrow rows, with wide rows 80 cm and narrow rows 70 cm. The ridge height is 15-18 cm, and the ridges should be straight as a line. Between ridges, dig an irrigation ditch 30 cm wide and 10 cm deep and fill it with water. The ridges should be covered with plastic mulch to raise the soil temperature.
Timely planting and prevention of pests and diseases. Mid-March is the best time to plant cucumbers in our province. On the ridges, plant one row on each side of the drainage ditch, with a row spacing of 60 cm and a plant spacing of 30 cm, planting 2700 cucumber plants per mu. Before lifting the seedlings, sterilize the seedbed once with 75% chlorothalonil. After planting in the whole greenhouse is completed, use 20% subai smoke fumigant and yashijue smoke fumigant to close the greenhouse and fumigate once to prevent the occurrence of pests and diseases.
Careful management and reasonable supplemental watering and fertilizing. When the vines grow to about 30 cm, hang the vines and remove the tendrils in time to facilitate ventilation and light penetration for rapid growth. Water according to the guttation of the cucumber growing point in the morning and the leaf appearance. If there are no dew drops at the growing point in the morning or the leaf surface slightly wilts at normal midday temperature, water under the mulch immediately. At the same time, after the female flowers fade, apply 5 kg of urea and 5-7 kg of potassium sulfate compound fertilizer per mu to promote fruit swelling and achieve high yield. In spring, the temperature in the cucumber plot should be controlled at 25-28°C during the day and about 15°C at night. Pay attention to ventilation and dehumidification to prevent high temperatures, and maintain the temperature difference between day and night.
Key management points during the growing process Key control points: the principle is to apply medicine early, with prevention more important than treatment. Starting from the cucumber seedling stage with one leaf and one heart, spray a protective fungicide once every 7-10 days, and spray the front and back of the leaves and all parts of the plant. In the early stage just after cucumber planting, root growth is not very strong. Spray more foliar fertilizer to increase root growth. Yunda 120 can be used for foliar spraying. Fertilizer flushing: after cucumber planting and before fruit set, generally water with clear water without fertilizer, because the base fertilizer is applied sufficiently and can supply cucumber growth at the seedling stage. Once the fruit is set and grows to 10-15 cm, fertilizer should be added when watering, and normal watering gradually begins. Disease control during the fertilizer flushing stage: damping-off disease is likely to occur in the early planting stage. It appears as light yellow water-soaked soft rot on roots, stems, and leaves, can produce a large number of oospores in root tissues, and causes the root epidermis to bulge or crack. It can be controlled with drugs such as metalaxyl/mancozeb and propamocarb.
Key points for winter greenhouse cucumber cultivation:
1. Cultivate high-quality cold-tolerant strong seedlings. The main cold-tolerant varieties include Aoni, a thornless mini cucumber seed. Its characteristics: this variety is an all-female thornless mini cucumber introduced from the Netherlands, indeterminate growth type, early maturing, compact plant growth with strong vigor, main vine bearing fruit, short internodes, 1-2 fruits per node, fruit at every node, fruit length about 16 cm, strong continuous fruiting ability, dark green color, glossy, sweet taste, extremely high yield, strong cold tolerance, high fruit set rate under high temperature and high humidity. Strong stress resistance, highly resistant to downy mildew, powdery mildew, fusarium wilt, and viral diseases and other pests and diseases, with no dead plants, suitable for autumn delayed, overwintering, early spring, and summer protected cultivation. There is also Shengdong No. 3 -- cucumber seeds. Characteristics of this variety: it is a first-generation hybrid, with vigorous plant growth, medium leaves, mainly main vine fruiting, dense fruit set, fast fruit growth, no resting of vines, strong continuous fruit setting ability, straight fruit, light green skin and flesh, sweet taste, fruit length about 35 cm, low deformed fruit rate, high marketable fruit rate, single fruit weight about 200 g, strong disease resistance, both parents selected as disease-resistant parents, highly resistant to fusarium wilt, downy mildew, angular leaf spot, and powdery mildew, tolerant to low temperature and weak light, overwintering cultivation yield about 25,000 kg per mu, harvest period can reach more than 200 days, suitable for early spring, autumn delayed, and overwintering cultivation in greenhouses.
2. Fertilizer and water management. In mid-to-late February, most winter warm greenhouses enter the peak fruit production period, and the demand for fertilizer and water gradually increases. Therefore, cucumber topdressing should be carried out after the end of February, generally applying 20 kg of urea, 5-8 kg of monopotassium phosphate, or 30-35 kg of potassium sulfate compound fertilizer per mu, once every 20 days. According to the situation, combine with watering and apply decomposed human manure and urine or soybean cake water with the irrigation water. At the same time, every 10-15 days, combine with disease control and carry out root-outside topdressing, spraying a 0.2% monopotassium phosphate solution, or a sugar-nitrogen solution prepared with sugar, urea, monopotassium phosphate, and water in a ratio of 1:1:0.2:100, or 500 times Pendebao nutrient solution, etc. At the end of February and the beginning of March, apply one more round of carbon dioxide gas fertilizer, which can obviously prevent premature aging of the plants, improve stress resistance, and extend the fruiting period. In the middle and late stages, the frequency and amount of watering should also increase, but it must be done according to the actual situation to prevent the ground temperature from dropping too much; generally, it is advisable to keep the ground temperature no lower than 15°C after watering. Prevent excessive seedling growth. In addition to measures such as uncovering covers in time, increasing ventilation, extending ventilation time, enhancing light intensity, and carrying out low-temperature hardening, chlormequat can be sprayed to inhibit it; chlormequat can also enhance the cold resistance and disease resistance of seedlings, but note that the concentration must not be too high.
3. Temperature regulation. After March, the outside temperature gradually rises. During this period, make full use of uncovering and covering straw curtains and opening and closing ventilation openings to regulate the temperature inside the greenhouse, keeping the greenhouse temperature at 26°C-30°C during the day and 12°C-14°C before pulling the curtains in the morning, so as to facilitate normal cucumber growth. Pruning and vine lowering: through pruning and vine lowering, keep the plant height at about 1.3 m, lower in the south and higher in the north, to facilitate light reception. The specific method is to lower the vines at the base of the cucumber stem and coil them on the ground so that the growing point of the cucumber plant is at a height of about 1.3 m, keep the tops of the cucumbers in the whole greenhouse basically on the same plane, and remove old leaves and diseased leaves, keeping more than 20 effective leaves per plant. Reasonable harvesting: for marketable cucumbers, generally it is suitable to keep 2-3 expanding fruits per cucumber plant; plants with strong growth can keep more and harvest later, while weak ones can keep fewer and harvest earlier.
4. Disease control. In this period, cucumbers are prone to diseases mainly including downy mildew, angular leaf spot, gray mold, and powdery mildew, and pests mainly include aphids, whiteflies, and leafminers. The above pests and diseases should be mainly prevented, with integrated control. In seedling management, carry out chemical control treatment once a week, using broad-spectrum fungicides such as chlorothalonil, carbendazim, and copper hydroxide in rotation. In rainy weather, it is recommended to use smoke fumigants instead of spraying for control, which can achieve better results.