Female pumpkin flowers dying before opening

Question

I have alot of little female buds on my pumpkin vine, but they are all turning yellow/brown and withering and dying before the buds open and can be pollinated. Is there any way to prevent this ? Or any way to encourage the female buds to open so that they can be pollinated by hand ? Thanks !

Answer 1

Someone else had the same problem... Here's what the North Dakota Agricultural Extension had to say about it:

"The female flowers were tightly closed up with no access to the lobes that I'm supposed to transfer the pollen to. Any ideas? (E-mail reference, San Jose, N.M.)

A: I don't know why the female flowers are not opening. Where did you get the seed? It could be a variety (cultivar) problem where your day-length, temperature extremes, or sunlight intensity is not conducive for reproductive activity. It may also be a fertility problem: pumpkins are greedy feeders of nutrients, but an imbalance of too much nitrogen could cause problems as well. Or, since reproduction requires an outlay of energy, perhaps the female flowers are not opening or aborting because they are grown in partial shade and simply have not accumulated enough carbohydrate reserves to develop pumpkin fruit. I would suggest getting the soil tested for nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, soluble salt levels, pH, and organic matter content. Also, check to see what the amount of direct sunlight contact with the vines are. They need full sunlight to be productive."

Forum on female flowers drying up before getting a chance to pollinate:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/...

The female flowers open early in the morning, & you can check the night before to detect which ones should be opening the next morning:  

"The female flowers open very early in the morning, perhaps about sunrise.   If you look closely, you can tell when a female flower will be opening the next morning because the normally green petals will develop a yellowish tinge in the evening, around supper time. The yellowish ones will open tomorrow morning, the green petaled ones will open some other, later day.   Same thing with the males- when the petals get yellowish in the evening, you know they will open the next morning...."

http://home.rochester.rr.com/srinz/pkinp...

When you do find an open female flower to pollinate it should be pollinated before 10 a.m. ...because pollination carried out at the end of the morning during warm weather has very little chance of success because the pollen will have heated up and fermented and will no longer be viable. Also, it will be more successful if several male flowers are used to pollinate one female flower. Pollination needs to be made to all segments of the female flower. Here's a picture & more instructions:

http://www.pumpkinnook.com/howto/pollen....

Good luck!!!    Hope this is helpful.

Answer 2

http://www.pumpkinnook.com/howto/cycle.h...