Tapered Cucumbers

[Drew Lawson]

This is a [minor] problem I had last year, and the one early vine this year looks to be continuing it.

At least some of my cucumber vines have a tendency to produce fruit that gets appropriately plump at the stem end, but never does so at the blossom end. In some cases, the narrow blossom end curls back toward the rest.

What causes this?

Last year I blamed inconsistent watering, but that has not (yet) been a problem, and I have a pointy cucumber about ready to eat.

The cucumbers are mostly for relish, so shape isn't important, but I like to understand things.

[mjciccarel]

Hey ya, I have that problem too !!!

[Ecnerwal]

Poor (incomplete) pollination?

If there are no seeds to be made, the plant does not waste energy on the fruit around the missing seeds - often happens with apples - when you have a severely lopsided one, the seeds on that side are not there, typically, indicating it was not fully pollinated. I'd guess the same thing might be happening with your cukes. You might want to try hand-pollinating some to see if it makes a difference. Doing what you can to support local pollinators (including the alternative ones) would be a more long-term approach.

[Drew Lawson]

That was my main guess. But as a guess, I wanted confirmation.

We have a solid bumble bee presence (currently on the Russian sage), and the various "hover fly" wasps (which probably aren't much for pollinating), but the honey bees are thin the last few years.

I *did* see some last year (and this year), as opposed to the year before. So I am hoping that the local situation is improving.

As I said, the over-all harvest has been good. I was wondering if this was some other common environment issue.

This year, I have more variety planted (most not yet blooming), so time will tell if that helps.