stunted cucumbers with yellow tips

by susan
(coastal VA)

I have burpless cucumbers growing in VA Beach, VA in full sun. While I am gettting a few fruits, they look like they fill at one end and fail to fill out at the other. The end of the cucumber attached to teh vine then begins to turn yellow before the fruit fills out.

Is this a virus?

Doug says - where to start? Not likely a virus. But there are so many other options that it's difficult to list them all. First cucumbers are prone to a wide range of problems. It "could" be any one of:

Lack of pollination. If the bees in your area are not flying or are dead because of colony collapse disorder, you're not going to be seeing many fully pollinated fruit. Incomplete pollination is also an option.

Leaf hoppers and the diseases they spread cause this - so you have to control leaf hoppers (rotenone)

Watering (too much or too little) leads to all kinds of rots and half fruits.

Ringspot - spread by insects who live in nearby weeds (get rid of weeds)

Thrips - (we're seeing a lot of these this year) cause mottling of the leaves and aborted or small fruits.

I could go on and on. Generally, it's going to mean identifying if there's an insect pest (bet on thrips) and then controlling that pest. Or it's going to be cultural (too cool, too wet) and you have a pollination problem or cultural problem as a result of the weather.