Help with my butternut squash?

Question

hi I'm growing butternut squash for the first time ever this year well my problem is when i get flowers on my plant they drop off, i have six plants and there all doing the same thing, they don't seem to have anything wrong with the plant the leaves are big & green and look healthy enough, can anyone offer some good tips and let me know what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

The female flowers might not have been  properly pollinated, so the ovary, which looks like a little vegetable, doesn't set fruit & falls off.

The male blossoms usually come on the plant first in the season...so if you don't have female blossoms...it's just a matter of time before you get female blossoms...which can then become pollinated.

There are several other reasons why you get all vine and no fruit on your squash: too much fertilizer, not enough sunlight, too much heat or too cool weather, rainy weather at bloom time,  no pollinating insect activity,  improper pollination or pest problems.Pollination needs to be made to all segments of the female flower. This has to be done by 10 a.m. because pollination carried out later than 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.

If you have both male & female blossoms, you can help pollinate the squash. In this video you can find out how to pollinate squash by hand. You should see the squash enlarge the day or two after pollination & it should be ready to pick in  3-4 days... unless the squash bug intefers with the process by sucking the juices out of the developing squash.

http://lubbock.tamu.edu/ipm/AgWeb/videos...

Make sure you don't water overhead early in the morning so the male flowers can have a chance to pollinate the female flowers.They will open up before dawn and will close completely by mid-morning.The male flowers possess both pollen and nectar, the female flowers only nectar. If the plants are watered from overhead early in the day, that may prevent all further pollination for that day. Everything gets washed off of the short-lived male flowers. Replacement flowers do not open then until the following morning.There can be other reasons why blossoms don't set fruit & fall off. Sometimes, even if they were pollinated... the blossoms can  abort from the stress of high day and night time temperatures.  Extreme temperatures during flowering... below 55 degrees or above 85 degrees... can reduce fruit set.  There can also be brief times, in hot weather,  when there are only female flowers & not any male flowers, so the female flower can't get pollinated. Too much shade or not enough light, plant disease, & even too much nitrogen can also cause poor fruit set.

http://www.kokopelli-seed-foundation.com...

Good luck! Enjoy the video :)  P.S. Thanks Chester  :)

Answer 2

add some fertilizer see if that helps.

Answer 3

OMG, a lot of kids read these questions, is this really appropriate to ask for help with your, how did you put it "butternut squash"!

Ain't it what they is called? hahahahaha, you win the award for backwoods hick of the day. When's the last time you heard the word aint folks?

Answer 4

My guess is that your flowers are doing exactly what they are supposed to.  But here is the solution to your mystery:  what does the stem that the flower was on look like?

Squashes have male and female flowers.  When a plant goes into bloom, the first flowers are male ('the pollen contributors').  These flowers will stay open one day, then shrivel up and fall off.  Their stem is just a green stick.  If you have a butternut that is a 'runner' variety, the males will mostly be at the center of the plant.  (With a bush variety, all flowers are at the center.)

As for the female flowers ('the pollen acceptor'), they too are open for one day.  The difference is that their stem looks like a very miniature squash.  If the flower is pollinated, the squash grows.  If not, the baby squash will yellow and abort.  If the plant is a running type, these flowers will be found along the runners.

Answer 5

The flowers drop of when the squash is ready to grow into a squash. There's nothing wrong.

Answer 6

Angel is correct on all counts.

Answer 7

This is happening to my pumpkins too. But it's not the flowers just dropping off, they completely get cut off. I think it might be because slugs or snails are eating the base of them.