Approximately 750 seeds of viable Diva cucumber seeds from a 5 gallon (about 19 liter) bucket that was full of old fruit. Many of the old fruit would have only a few seeds and some had none at all. Just for reference, these were grown outside in the presence of bees.
Wondering why parthenocarpic seed is sometimes expensive? Getting good pollination with fruit that sets even without pollination can be a challenge.
Over time, I am seeing more and more concerns from people who are going to Cucurbits in areas that receive a lot of rain. While moisture is generally good, because of the way that the Cucurbit roots change over time their need for sufficient drainage changes as they grow. While providing plenty of water at the base of the plant is beneficial as a seedling, once the plant begins producing fruit it's need for respiration in the root zone is much higher.
While I am no expert on all things Cucurbit, I have learned from experience that the roots of these vining crops have a higher demand for air as they continue to expand. If, as the root system expands, the roots that were once dry are flooded with water, the plant will begin to drown. The only comparison I can make is phenomena in the lungs.
I made a quick video to explain it as well as to explain how I discovered this. Basically, I was growing in a partial hydroponic environment and was able to literally see what happens to the plant roots over time and how they reacted when the respiratory roots were flooded.
Attached is the picture of the image I refer to in the video. As garders struggle with wetter climates, it may be wise to grow Cucurbits on hills with very good drainage. I really hope this helps many of those gardeners that are struggling with their cucurbits this year because of excessive moisture.
I want to start by saying that, though I have been very focused on growing various cucumber and immature melon varieties out the last dozen years of my life, I continue to feel like a beginner. I keep meeting those who know so much more in many ways, I keep making mistakes and learning new things. With that, I did want to share a little bit of insight for those of you who may want to grow "greenhouse" type cucumbers, but would prefer to use open-pollinated instead of hybrid seed.
Though many hybrids are parthenocarpic and gynoecious, some parthenocarpic cucumber varieties are also open-pollinated. What does this mean? It means that, though the parthenocarpic plants can produce female fruit without pollination, because the vines also produce male flowers – if they are pollinated properly – they will produce viable seed that will grow the same kind of cucumber.
This requires a good population of both plants and bees though, so don’t be surprised if you try to save seeds of a parthenocarpic variety only to find out that there are no seeds in it. If there is no pollinator present to deliver pollen at the precise time when the female flower is ready to receive it, no seed will be set. I have successfully saved viable seed from a few parthenocarpic cucumber varieties. Here are a couple pictures from when I saved seed from Arkansas Little Leaf. As I recall, out of the whole jar, I only harvested a few dozen viable seeds.
A word to the wise - do not use grass clippings in your garden beds unless you are 100% sure that they are herbicide-free. Modern herbicides are so effective and persistent, it is difficult to believe that they are legal. Because my neighbors grass has some weeds on it, I thought that their grass-clippings might be herbicide free. But they weren't.
Unfortunately, broad-leaf herbicides are definitely the norm instead of the exception to grass fertilizers these days.
Most cucumbers and melons bounce back from this kind of thing if you catch it quickly enough. I'm hoping so for my own garden. I removed as many of the grass clippings as I could and added worm castings. Now, I just pray, wait and hope.
Reader Beware – I am about to breach a very controversial topic, of which there has been some research already done, but none that has been done with field trial of weak seed, so I thought I would just put this out there. The topic is “seed orientation”.
While I don’t believe that which way a seed is oriented matters when one is dealing with fresh healthy vigorous seed, I do believe that it is a very important factor when planting weaker cucurbit seeds. I have found that the problem with the majority of weak/older seed is that they have trouble shedding their hard outer seed coat. Planting the seed with the radicle facing downward only exacerbates the problem. The seedlings emerge from the soil, unable to push their seed coats off and eventually die from being starved from the inability to photosynthesize because the seed coats are now dry and the struggling seedling has to push it off without having anything secure the outer covering to pull out from it. I prefer orienting seeds with the radicle facing up at a 45 degree angle, with soil compacted on top of the opposite side of the radicle, so that when the root emerges from the seed and the seedling attempts to remove its leaves from its outer covering, the seed coat is lodged firmly in place so the seed can pull out from it. Orienting my seeds this way has provided me with a much higher survival rate and much earlier root emergence-to-photosynthesis-time than other methods.
I have included a picture to illustrate my thoughts with the left side with illustrations of what I have observed when orienting seeds with the radicle facing downward and the right side with illustrations based on what I have observed when having the radicle facing up at an angle and with soil compacted onto the opposite side to lodge the harder seed coat in the soil.
If anyone else has strong feelings on the matter, please let me know. I would love to run an experiment with a batch of very consistent fresh seed to see if I can provide hard evidence to an advantage in the time required to have the seedling shed its seed coat. (Edit: I wanted to also let you know that I often pre-sprout my seeds enough for the roots to have already emerged before placing them in the soil like this)
