Why spray cucumber plants with ethephon in summer and autumn?
Why should cucumbers be sprayed with ethephon in summer and autumn? How do you spray cucumbers with ethephon? Experienced netizens are also asked to help explain, because the cucumber is a monoecious crop with unisexual flowers pollinated by cross-pollination, and the timing and number of female and male flowers appearing have a decisive impact on cucumber yield and economic returns. During the summer and autumn cucumber growth and development stage...
Why should cucumbers be sprayed with ethephon in summer and autumn? How do you spray cucumbers with ethephon? Experienced netizens are also asked to help explainBecause the cucumber is a monoecious crop with unisexual flowers pollinated by cross-pollination, the timing and number of female and male flowers appearing have a decisive impact on cucumber yield and economic returns. The summer and autumn cucumber growth and development stage occurs in the hot high-temperature season, with long sunshine hours, so female flowers form late.
Spraying ethephon during the cucumber seedling stage, however, can promote the development of female organs, causing female flowers to form at main-stem nodes that originally bore male flowers and lowering the node position where female flowers are borne, thereby producing more cucumbers, not only increasing yield but also bringing early maturity.
After ethephon treatment, cucumber female flowers increase and internodes become shorter; within the first 20 nodes of the plant, female flowers are borne at almost every node. But for young cucumbers to set and develop normally, and to achieve such an effect, management must also be strengthened to ensure an adequate supply of fertilizer and water. In the middle and late stages of cucumber growth, spray 3-5 times with a mixed solution of 0.3% potassium dihydrogen phosphate and 802 diluted 3000-4000 times, to ensure the vigorous demands of vegetative growth and reproductive growth of the plant and prevent premature senescence. Therefore, Zhongdiwang has compiled the methods for spraying cucumbers with ethephon, listed below for netizens' reference.
1. Timing of spraying cucumbers with ethephon:
When cucumbers have grown 1-2 true leaves, the flower buds in the leaf axils of nodes 2-11 differentiate successively, but their sex has not yet been determined; spraying ethephon during this period works best. By the 4-true-leaf stage and beyond, the sex of the flower buds has already formed, and using ethephon again is futile. The suitable period for spraying cucumbers with ethephon in summer and autumn is the 2-3 true-leaf stage, and the number of sprays is generally 1-3 times, with 1 spray every 7-10 days.
2. Concentration of ethephon for spraying cucumbers:
The suitable concentration for using ethephon to control cucumber sex is a 0.01%-0.02% diluted solution, and the specific application depends on the number of treatments. Generally, when spraying 2 times, a 0.02% diluted solution is appropriate; when spraying 3 times, a 0.01% diluted solution is better.
3. Method of spraying cucumbers with ethephon:
You can choose after 4 p.m. on a cloudy day to spray the prepared solution evenly on the leaves of the whole plant and the growing point, striving for fine mist droplets. Be careful to leave a certain number of plants untreated so that the male flowers produced on them provide pollen for the female flowers in the field.
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