Of all the vegetable crops consumed by humans, cucumbers are the most watery. This has a fairly simple explanation: we eat cucumbers without waiting for their technical ripeness; in fact, we eat an unripe product. That is, people interrupt the process of crop maturation at the stage when it is just beginning to form fruits and seeds.
It is at this time that the plant most effectively absorbs nutrients from the soil. Therefore, cucumbers respond perfectly to any top dressing, growing huge fruits on their branches. However, this is precisely the main problem of growing this crop.
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Top dressing of cucumbers
Cucumber
cucumbers (like all pumpkins) are able to absorb any amount of nutrients that will be provided to them, and if you overdo it with the amount, then all the excess of these substances will go into the fruit. And if it is quite problematic to spoil the quality of the crop with organic fertilizers, then everything is much worse with mineral fertilizers.
Feeding cucumbers in a greenhouse or open field has a lot of features that even a novice gardener should know.
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Dissolved organic fertilizers in water
Like all crops, cucumbers can be fertilized with organic and inorganic fertilizers. The former are more preferable, since they are environmentally friendly and physically cannot lead to the accumulation of dangerous concentrations of chemically active substances in cucumbers.
- mullein
- bird droppings (chicken, quail, etc.)
- compost
- rotted manure
- etc.
Inorganic fertilizers have their undeniable advantages: they are easy to dose, transport and store, but at the same time, they have a serious disadvantage: in high concentrations, they make cucumbers unfit for human consumption.
Cucumbers are allowed to be fed with both basal and foliar top dressing. Root top dressing is done by watering the plant under the root, and foliar - spraying from a leaf sprayer with a solution of fertilizers of a lower concentration.
Usually, for most fertilizers, the concentration is reduced by half, for chemically active compounds - by 3-5 times.
Superphosphate is the most popular mineral fertilizer
Cucumbers are one of the crops for which foliar feeding will be more effective than basal. At the same time, nutrients will be absorbed by the plant faster and fertilizers scattered into the soil will not feed other plants (weeds) located around the cucumber bushes.
Foliar top dressing should be carried out only in cloudy weather, or in the evening.
When carrying out root dressing, fertilizer should be poured very carefully, because the cucumber root system is too close to the surface and cannot be called strong. Washing out the soil and injuring the roots of the cucumber, of course, is not worth it.
At the initial stage, after transplanting cucumbers into a greenhouse or under the open sky, nitrogen fertilizers should prevail. In any case, it is recommended that the very first top dressing after transplantation be made more “nitrogenous” than phosphorus-potassium.
During the period of budding, flowering and fruit formation ovaries it is already more important for the plant to receive more potassium and phosphorus. Nitrogen will be redundant - the plant does not need to increase the green mass when it has a more important task - the formation of fruits.
Foliar top dressing of cucumbers
It is believed that the most effective cucumber fertilization scheme is one in which the crop receives 3 to 4 top dressings per season. This means that the pause between top dressings will be from 2 to 3 weeks.
On the other hand, the best option would be to tie the feeding schedule to certain stages of the plant's life.
Then top dressing should be done like this:
In the case when the plant is grown on poor soil, the number of top dressings can be increased to 5-6. One way or another, it is necessary to take into account the degree of development of plants, the intensity of the formation of flowers and fruit ovaries, climatic features and weather conditions.
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Top dressing in the open field
Radical top dressing cucumbers
Organic fertilizers contain all the substances necessary for cucumbers, and, if possible, it is recommended to limit yourself to them. An exception will be the additional introduction of trace elements, which may not be in the organic. However, it is done situationally, in case of certain symptoms.
It is recommended to feed cucumbers with a solution of mullein (500 ml is dissolved in 10 liters of water), or bird (chicken) droppings. In the latter case, to reduce the chemical activity of the litter, it should be infused in water for three days. Manure concentration in water: 1 liter per 15 liters of water.
With such fertilization, each plant will need up to 1.5 liters of the resulting mixture.
Another equally effective organic fertilizer is wood ash dissolved in water with the addition of iodine.
At the same time, the following components are added to 10 liters of water:
Root top dressing of cucumbers
The composition is infused for several hours in a warm place. Then it is again diluted with water at a concentration of 1 to 10 and used to water plants in an amount of 1-1.5 liters for one cucumber bush.
If this top dressing is carried out by the root method, it should not be allowed to fall on the leaves, since the mixture will be too chemically active for the cucumber foliage.
The first feeding with ashes is recommended under the root of the plant, the rest should be foliar. At the same time, the concentration of the ash solution for foliar top dressing should be 2-3 times lower than when top dressing under the root.
Sometimes, to attract pollinating insects, 50 g of sugar per 10 liters of water are added to the ash solution. Potassium permanganate (several crystals) is added to the last dressing instead of sugar to protect plants from possible manifestations of fungal infections.
At the time of the appearance of cucumber ovaries, it is recommended to use a solution superphosphate (no more than 40 g per 10 liters of water). With this solution, it is necessary to process the leaves of the plant in the morning and evening hours. The frequency of repetition of treatment is 1 time per week.
Yeast top dressing
Often fertilizing cucumbers is used to fertilize with yeast. This method is very simple and effective. It is good because it can replace mineral fertilizers in the absence of organic matter.
To do this, dissolve up to 15 g of yeast and 30 g of sugar in 10 liters of warm water. After that, the resulting mixture is infused for three days in a warm place. The consumption rate of the composition is 1 liter per 1 bush.
If live yeast is not available, dry yeast can be used. At the same time, one tablespoon of dry yeast is enough for 10 liters of water. The concentration of sugar remains unchanged.
This top dressing is applied only at the stage of fruiting. It can not be used during budding and flowering.
Before yeast top dressing, it is necessary to water the plant abundantly. No more than 3 yeast dressings of the plant are allowed, performed once every 10 days.
An alternative to yeast can be rye bread. In order to prepare top dressing on bread, you need to take one stale loaf and soak it in a bucket of warm water for 8-10 hours.
After that, the bread must be kneaded, mixed thoroughly and add a few milliliters of iodine to it.
Preparing bread meal
Next, the resulting composition is diluted in water (1 liter of the composition per 10 liters of water) and the plants are watered according to the scheme: 1 bush - 2 liters of top dressing.
Preliminary preparation steps are similar to yeast fertilization - abundant watering before applying "bread" fertilizer. Treatment "bread" fertilizer is produced no more than 2 times per season with a frequency of 10-12 days.
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Root top dressing is needed for cucumbers
Greenhouse plants, unlike those that grow in the open field, need more abundant or more intensive top dressing. This is because they do not have the natural sources of fertilizer that outdoor plants have.
Rainwater containing a sufficiently large percentage of nutrients does not enter the greenhouses, natural organic matter in the form of bird droppings and dead animals does not enter the soil, etc. In addition, the closed space has a little, but less sunlight, and, most importantly, does not contribute to the pollination of flowers.
On the other hand, the closed ecosystem of the greenhouse makes its own adjustments to the lifestyle of greenhouse plants. They “squeeze out” as much as possible all the juices from the volume of soil that they have and greedily absorb any top dressing.
Therefore, the amount or concentration of fertilizers applied to greenhouse plants should only be those recommended. Greenhouse cucumbers do not forgive an overdose of fertilizers.
The first feeding of greenhouse cucumbers is carried out 1.2-2 weeks after seedlings are planted in the greenhouse. Plants should be watered before fertilizing.
Top dressing is carried out with the help of slurry or chicken manure. Slurry is obtained from manure by adding 5-6 times more water to it. Chicken manure is recommended to be dissolved in even higher concentrations - up to 10-20 parts of water per 1 part of manure.
In any case, 200 g of wood ash must be added to every 10 liters of the resulting composition.
In the absence of manure, litter or artificial organics, mineral fertilizers are used.
The recommended composition is:
The listed components are dissolved in 10 liters of water.
Boric acid is an essential trace element for growing cucumbers.
It is also necessary to add microelements to mineral fertilizers, which are a kind of "vitamins" for the plant. These are boron and manganese sulfide. They are added at 0.5 and 0.3 g, respectively, per 10 liters of water.
These substances are critically important for the plant, as they are stimulants for the synthesis of chlorophyll; without them, the leaves of the plant begin to turn yellow.
After fertilizing, it is necessary to water the plants with clean water, to clean the leaves of fertilizer residues that can cause a chemical burn.
A few days after top dressing, when the topsoil is completely dry, it is loosened to improve root gas exchange.
The second and subsequent top dressings are made based on the fact that the doses of applied fertilizers increase by 1.5-2 times. It is recommended to use the lower limit of the given amount of a particular fertilizer for the first top dressing, and the upper limit for the second and subsequent ones. If organic fertilizers are used, then their concentration also increases by 1.5-2 times.
As the plant grows, the roots of cucumbers may become exposed. They must be covered regularly with fresh and moist soil. This will contribute to the emergence of new horse shoots and improve the nutrition of the plant.
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Conclusion
Cucumber is a capricious but grateful plant
Cucumbers, despite their prevalence and seeming ease of cultivation, are actually one of the most difficult crops in terms of agricultural technology. And the point here is not only the difficulties of growing seedlings or placing crops on beds or in greenhouses. The fertilizer schedule for cucumbers is also one of the most complex among common vegetables.
And if mistakes in watering, pinching and pollination lead to the loss of part of the crop, then improper feeding can destroy it completely. Therefore, the process of fertilizing cucumbers must be approached very carefully and always adhere to the permissible application rates. In the case of cucumbers, the rule “underfeeding is better than overfeeding” always works.
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