Often, early in the life of a seeded cucumber type, it will first produce a large number of male flowers. If you are growing the seeded American slicer or other similar large-fruited and seeded cucumbers, then the plants need both male and female flowers for pollination to occur. In this case, the small fruitlets, which have flowers attached to the end, would be thinned to one per node. If growing the large, seedless, continental greenhouse types-sometimes called European, Japanese, or English cucumbers, and are the most commonly grown hydroponically-then all the flowers should be female as the plants are gynoecious (that is, they only produce female flowers as pollination is not required to set and produce fruit). The small Lebanese or snacker cucumber varieties produce smaller fruit, so growers typically allow two to three fruits to set at each node as the plant can easily support these. However, flowering/fruitlet pruning depends very much on the type of cucumber you are growing. Often, if left to their own devices, the plant will naturally abort a number of small fruitlets, leaving only those that can be supported. Cucumber plants that are healthy and growing vigorously under good conditions can develop an excessive number of flowers-far more than the plant can successfully carry through to fruit maturity-particularly, early in the plant’s life.
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