How to pinch cucumbers outdoors?

To get a bountiful harvest, it will be useful for every gardener to figure out how to pinch cucumbers in the open field, as well as to understand why it is necessary at all. Despite the seeming complexity of this process, absolutely any summer resident is quite capable of mastering it. Step-by-step instructions and a detailed diagram will help you understand how to properly pinch parthenocarpic and other cucumbers grown without shelter.

Not all summer residents are sure that it is really necessary to pinch cucumbers in the open field. But this procedure has several important advantages. After limiting growth, the shoots direct all their forces to ensure a bountiful harvest. A properly formed bush promotes good growth and fruit development. They get maximum moisture from the soil, do not taste bitter.

Pinching, or blinding, pinching, of a cucumber bush is aimed at stimulating branching on the sides... This allows you to get more female shoots, from which the ovaries are formed. Without this procedure, there will be many barren flowers on the cucumbers.

Novice summer residents who want to increase the yield of cucumbers in this way should first study the basic principles of the procedure. The basic rules can be formulated as follows.

1. The right choice of weather. It is better to perform all manipulations in the morning, strictly in dry weather.
2. Working with bush and shoots requires caution... They are very fragile and break off easily. You can remove no more than 1/5 of the bush at a time, otherwise it may simply die.
3. When pruning yellowed, withered shoots, use only a disinfected tool. Hands, even with gloves, do not cut them off.
4. When tying lashes, do not pull them up strongly. The plant does not have a buried root system; such manipulations are simply harmful to it.
5. The formation of a bush is necessarily accompanied by other agrotechnical measures. It is necessary to regularly loosen, water, weed the soil at the roots and in the aisles.
6. Excess male flowers and shoots must be removed. They can be distinguished from female ones by the absence of a pistil with a fetal rudiment. Flowers with stamens can and should be normalized.
7. When pruning, it is important to remove the leaf petiole before the shoot, without leaving any "stumps". Failure to comply with this rule will lead to an increased risk of infection of the bushes with powdery mildew.
8. The time for pinching also needs to be chosen correctly. It is important that the bush does not have time to gain more than 1 m in height. But even very young plants, just transplanted, are not exposed to such an effect. They are given at least 2 weeks for rooting.
9. Repetition of the procedure. It is performed 3-4 weeks after the first pinching.

During the harvesting phase and throughout the growing season, the tops of the bushes should remain in place. If you move them, the plants may die and begin to dry out. In general, the essence of the procedure is precisely to remove the uppermost part of the central shoot to stimulate lateral branching.

The main tool for dazzling cucumber lashes is a pruner. It can be replaced with sharp office scissors or a garden knife. Also, in the process, synthetic threads for tying, wooden supports for lashes will be useful.

You can learn how to pinch cucumbers correctly in a short time. The first thing worth studying is the belonging of a cucumber variety to a specific group. So, self-pollinated parthenocarpic subspecies do not need such a procedure. Both on the main stem and on the sides, exclusively female flowers form on them. Rationing will have to be carried out only with a bouquet and bunch type of flowering in order to unload the plants.

Most often we are talking about hybrid forms - they have the prefix F1 in their name. Plants grown in the open field in a horizontal way are also not touched, since it is easy for them to harm, destroying the entire crop.

The rest of the species of these fruiting vines, directed upward along the support, are best pinched when planting. How to do it correctly, according to the scheme, is worth telling in more detail. The process is carried out in stages during the season as follows.

1. The first pruning is carried out on seedlings at the age of 25 days. At this point, she is still growing without a garter. When the first pair of leaves with thin lashes appear, the lateral shoots are carefully removed with sharp scissors. You need to act very carefully, since the central shoot at this stage is still quite weak, any external influence is contraindicated for it.
2. Second pinch... It is performed at the 9-leaf stage, when the plants have already been transferred to the ground, but not tied up. All the excess in the liana is cut off, and the extra side shoots are also removed. Barren flowers break off.
3. Third pinch... It is carried out after at least 12 leaves appear on the vine. An unnecessary ovary is removed, as well as shoots coming from the central stem. Then the bush is fed with a mineral complex, attached to a support.

With the appearance of 14-15 leaves, the lateral shoots on cucumbers no longer touch, allowing them to branch. If it turns out to be impossible to complete the garter due to the heavily thickened planting, you can simply remove the sprouts to the top - 4 leaves on the main stem. In hybrid forms, pinching is done mainly at the end of the season in order to stop the growth of shoots.

There is a universal scheme that allows you to step by step pince cucumbers even for novice summer residents. It is enough to follow the instructions.

1. Fasten the central shoot of the vine on the support.
2. Count 7-9 rows of leaves from the base. Dazzle them without leaving stepchildren.
3. Inspect minor shoots, remove male buds, yellowed or dried leaves, shoots.
4. When forming a bush, remove the ovary located at the very bottom. It usually does not produce a good quality crop.
5. On the next 2-4 nodes, stepchildren are saved with a length of no more than 200 mm. Flowers are not cut here.
6. Pinch the stepsons when they reach a length of 400 mm or more.
7. With an increase in vines to 1.8-2 m, the following procedure is carried out. Shoots of more than 0.5 m are spawned.
8. The crown, which has grown to a horizontal support, is passed along the wire along, then directed downward. As soon as the central shoot grows 0.5 m, the last pinching is performed.

If insect pollinated varieties of cucumbers are grown in the garden, they will have to be processed according to a slightly different scheme. The features of the cultivation of this group of plants in the open field include a wider planting of individual bushes. The garter for them is also started earlier, providing fragile stems with sufficiently reliable protection and fixation.

The pinching scheme in this case will be as follows.

1. Shoots are cut below the 6th row of leaves.
2. All side shoots are removed, except for the 3 strongest and most viable ones.
3. On the next 2-4 nodes from the top, stepchildren are saved with a length of no more than 200 mm. Flowers are not cut here.
4. Otherwise, the actions are repeated according to the universal scheme.

After normalizing the growth of stepchildren, it is important to provide the plants with good care so that they recover faster. If we are talking about bee-pollinated varieties with the formation of the bulk of the flowers according to the female type, pinching is carried out on rows 6-9, 1 fruit is left on the processes below. On the rest of the shoots, one extra leaf is removed, no more, without taking into account those that move away from the central stem.

For parthenocarpic species of cucumbers, blooming with tassels or in a bouquet type, their own pinching scheme is used.

1. Plants are tied up.
2. The first pairs of shoots on the stem are blinded. 2-3 on each side. Everything is removed, both stepsons and ovaries.
3. Formation continues into 1 stem.
4. Shoot rudiments from 5 to 17 are removed.
5. All branches and vines located above are pinched. As soon as the central shoot reaches the support, it is twisted around it 2 times.
6. The top is cut off. Trimming is done when the lash reaches the adjacent plant to the left or right.

In the blind spot, leaf pruning is performed at the initial stage of fruiting. Dry and yellow parts of plants must be harvested several times a week so that the formed liana develops normally and is not affected by diseases and pests.