What is the reason for DEFORMED cucumbers?

[!potatoes!]

I've gotten that sometimes in the past. I think it's from incomplete pollination.

[applestar]

I think !potatoes! is correct -- I've had them big and fat on top near stem end as well as big and fat on the blossom end.

I suspect climate can play a role with alternating drought/flood conditions during fruit development as well.

[Taiji]

Was it really late in the season when that happened? The only time I've noticed my cucumbers doing that is late in the season when it's cooler near frost time and a lot less light available. They're not growing as fast and have stopped setting fruit. Still edible though! But tougher.

[imafan26]

It is caused by insufficient pollination. It actually takes more than one bee visit to complete pollination.

The other reason for the fruit being fat on the bottom and skinny on the top also has to do with pollination, but also with genetics.

If you have a parthenocarpic cucumber, it was not meant to be pollinated at all. It only produces female flowers and no males and every flower will have a fruit behind it. It is what is usually grown in hot houses where there are no bees released for polination. If the fruit is pollinated by bees the fruit will look mishapen but still be edible and the seeds in the fat part of the cucumber will be bigger because they did get pollinated.

https://localfoodhub.org/wp-content/uplo ... unnels.pdf
https://www.ehow.com/info_12185698_parth ... eties.html
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/assets/infor ... y-8989.pdf
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/ ... umbers.htm
https://homeguides.sfgate.com/selfpollin ... 43527.html

[Francis Barnswallow]

I chalk it up to pollination issues as well.

I've had those type of cukes all the time when I tried to pollinate the blossoms myself with a small soft paint brush. Didn't work for me at all. So I moved my cukes in a screened in area and let them do their thing by themselves. I didn't expect much but I was wrong. Besides the mice problem (UPDATE: It was taken care of for now by finding a deep 2ft hole in my patio behind a large plant which is now filled with 4 bags of rocks and repellent)............the cukes so far have been the best looking results I've ever seen, and that's 5+ years of trying to grow them. In each male and female blossom I see tiny ants and my bet is that they're doing the pollination job bees usually do.

If you don't have a problem with SVB's (which is a pretty common problem people have...especially me), then just let the cukes and insects especially bees do their job. If SVB's become a problem then shield the cuke plants with a screen of some kind. Look up pickleworms as well.