i have 2 packets of seeds, one the seeds look like regular white cucumber seeds, the other the seeds are blue. both are from trades with other dgers. are the blue ones treated some kind of way? i am afraid to plant them till i have a clue why they are bright blue. thanks oh, and i dont remember where they came from so unfortunately i cant ask the person i traded with.
straight eight seed question
It could be that the blue seeds are "male" cucumber seeds.
I used to order from a company in TX (I forgot the name) and their package will come with pink and blue seeds. The pink were female and the blue were male pollinators.
Read this:
"New varieties of cucumbers are being released, which are advertised as all-female, or gynoecious types. On a normal cucumber plant, the first 10 to 20 flowers are male, and for every female flower, which will produce the fruit, 10 to 20 male flowers are produced. These facts indicated to plant breeders that production could be increased greatly if many more female flowers were produced. Some of the new varieties produce plants that have only female flowers, while others have a greater proportion of female to male flowers. These plants tend to bear fruit earlier, with a more concentrated set and better yields overall.
In order for the flower to develop into a fruit, pollen must be carried by bees from male flowers on the same plant or on different plants to the female flower, the one with the tiny swollen pickle.
GYNOECIOUS cucumber flowers are pollinated by male flowers from other plants, the seeds of which are usually included in the seed packet (NORMALLY BLUE COLOR).
PARTHENOCARPIC cucumbers are all female and are seedless because the fruit is produced without being pollinated. This type is usually grown in greenhouses, but if it is planted near others,
pollination will occur and seeds will form."
I grow the best cucumbers this year using parthenocarpic varieties from Johhny's. Even under 110 F degrees the plants kept producing ... I am guessing they didn't stress about waiting for pollinators.
thank you but i am still sort of confused. does this mean i shouldnt plant the blue seeds near the white ones? or does it mean the blue seeds will produce all male flowers? (genetics was never my stong suit, obviously)
I think so, plant both white and blue seeds ... just in case the company where you got the blue seeds color-coded them.
But ... I am also guessing that this is the reason why the colored them blue.
Good luck.
Sometimes the seeds are treated with a fungicide and are died blue. Twilly seeds has blue, green, pink and normal colored seeds, depending on what they are treated with. Could be your seeds are simply treated seeds from a seed company.
I'm going with Cala, more'n likely they are treated seeds. Diva cukes, treated, come with the color blue (from Johnny's Seeds, anyway).
They are usually treated with Thiram, a fungicide which helps them germinate in cooler soils.
Drthor, you're correct in that some "seedless" cukes as well as watermelons need a pollinator and those varieties are shipped with some seeds coated with color. In this case, since rising creek rec'd all blues and not a selection of colors I'd go with the fungicide treated seeds. If someone had sent seeds in a trade I imagine they would send seeds of both colors, not pick out only the blue ones and send.
Shoe