Joined: 04 Nov 2006 Location: Southern Ontario zone 5a (Map) Posts: 6310 PlantStew: 9555
Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:19 pm Post subject:
I'm no expert on Squash or Gourds, but I believe that there are male and female flowers and only the female flowers make fruit. Hopefully someone else knows more about it.
Joined: 21 May 2007 Location: london england Posts: 9
Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:04 am Post subject: squash n gourd
hi seedfreak. sounds like a pollenation problem, pick a male flower, strip off the yellow petal leaving the stamen then brush inside the female to manualy pollenate ( works every time ) soon you will have enough fruit for you and the neighbours,happy growing T T F N harveymoon.
Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Location: Chicago Area Posts: 160
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:50 pm Post subject:
Do you see female flowers? Female flowers are easily identified. A tiny baby fruit is located between the stem and the flower.
If you do not see female flowers, maybe you just wait for another couple of weeks. Squash and gourds starts with lots of male flowers first. Female flowers will emerge after a couple of weeks.
If you see that female flowers die and fall off, then you may have the pollenation problem. Squash and gourds need insects for pollenation.
If you do not see bees flying around, then you have to pollinate your plant by hand. Do the job in the early morning. The female flowers will close later in the day. Select a male flower and make sure the pollen is mature. Touch the stamen with your finger and see if tiny yellow particles come off on your finger. Using the stamen (with petals removed) and gently rub the pollen onto the inside stigma of the female flower.
If you see lots of bees, there might be some other problems. Check the following:
1. Look carefully around your blossoms and see if there are very tiny insects. These tiny thrip fly eat pollen and the female flowers may die and fall off. Many pollen eating insects are pollinators. But thrip flies usually do not make travels from flower to flower and they will eat all the pollen on both male and female.
2. Check the roots and see if there irregular brown-colored knots. If so, there are nematodes. They multiply rapidly and live off the essential liquids of the plant and the plant performance will be greatly reduced. By the time of flowering, the nematodes may multiplied so much that the plant may just barely to support the nematodes.
3. High day (above 90) and low night (below 55) time temperatures will cause plant stress and cause the tiny pollinated fruit to abort as a result. If your fruit is shriveling and dying because of weather, don't worry. As soon as the weather improves, you will see new females appear and succeed.
4. Do you have amper water? This is essential especially in hot days.
5. Stop putting any fertilizer with nitrogen on your plant and add more phosphorous to promote the flowering process. Too much nitrogen ia also a factor which will delay the setting of fruit on the vine.
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Location: Coastal South Carolina Posts: 44
Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:32 pm Post subject:
Thanks Nan, your info was helpful. Actually I think something was eating the roots of my plants because they shriveled at the stem and died. I think I will start some in containers this week and see what happens with real "potting soil" instead of "beach sand with leaves".
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Location: Coastal South Carolina Posts: 44
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:38 am Post subject:
I am not sure what happened to the squash, but i have gourds that have rived kudzu and won! Again, lots of flowers, but no gourds. Maybe it is just too soon.
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