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Comment by Vlad Jovanovic on July 1, 2013 at 2:18pm

Hey Jon, I might have figured out at least some of why I'm able to get away with pruning far, far less that half the fruit without having my plants stall out. I could be off but most American grown cucumbers are of the monoecious type, which just means that you have both male as well as female flowers on the same plant. The plants I'm using are gynoecious type (all female flowers)...think of them as the sensimilla of the cucumber world (they're also parhenocarpic hybrids, so those all female flowers pollinate themselves...the Amazonians dream)...

Anyways, this is what the Harrow research Center has to say on the matter: 

"...Traditionally, the oldest and simplest way to improve crop plants was to save seed from plants that had desirable characters, e.g., high yield and good flavor. This approach leads to crop improvement only when genetic diversity exists to begin with and the plants breed true (i.e., desirable characters are transferred unaltered from generation to generation). Natural outcrossing (hybridization) occurs when a group of plants from one variety is pollinated by another distinct group of plants by wind, insects, or other natural means. However, because nature's way of creating variability is too slow, the plant breeder usually resorts to artificial ways of producing it. Artificial hybridization involves the crossing of two or more parents chosen for carrying desirable characters. Breeders frequently use this method to generate variation from which to select useful plants. In contrast to natural hybridization, which is slow and random, artificial

hybridization is controlled and more effective. The cucumber is a cross-pollinated plant characterized by parthenocarpy (i.e., production of seedless fruits without pollination). Parthenocarpy is of economic importance in the breeding and production of cucumbers because it bypasses the laborious and costly process of artificial pollination. Hybrid vigor in cucumbers is particularly pronounced, resulting in 20-40% yield increase in relation to the parent lines. Thus for commercial production, seed companies release Fl hybrids almost universally. Furthermore, because the monoecious types are too vigorous and need frequent pruning, nearly all new hybrids are gynoecious types selected for high yield and moderate vigor..."

Now, I'm just willing to bet that Peter is using an open pollinated (and hence monoecious) type of cuke at his colleges hydro greenhouse, and that that is why I'm able to get away with these heavy loads without fouling up production schedules. Otherwise it would not make sense at all...that a much more knowledgeable man with more experience than I, with a way better equipped system (I'm sure) would be potentially producing less yields... 

Comment by Vlad Jovanovic on June 28, 2013 at 9:32am

Sort of...I touched on that a bit on my May 10th post here: http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/forum/topics/dual-root-zone...

and linked an interesting paper on plant dynamics in the un-likely event that someone would want to know why and how cukes abort fruit when over-laden...

In short, I've not had them stall out like the 4-6 weeks you mentioned but I did notice that when I didn't prune off some fruit (particularly some of the larger cukes on the lower end of the vines), some of the smaller fruit towards the vines growing point would totally abort. (Except in this one crazy vigorous plant...which seems like just one of those cool little flukes)...

The harvest off of these 8 plants has been pretty amazing and relatively constant thus far. 

Comment by Jon Parr on June 28, 2013 at 9:02am

V, I don't have too much experience with cucumbers outside of soil, but the local college raises them in Hydro, and they have to snip about half of the flowers in order to maintain harvests. For them, if the plant loads on too many fruits, it stops making flowers and cukes for 4-6 weeks and that fouls up their supply. Have you noticed the same?

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