Squash question

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Grimmiles Woodland Park, CO Jul 04, 2013

I'm growing three kinds of squash, yellow crookneck, zucchini, and ronde nice. I've never grown squash before. It seems that all the male flowers bloom and go away and then the female flowers open after the males are gone. I don't know how pollination is ever going to occur because they seem out of sink. Is this normal? Are the females just playing hard-to-get? (Just kidding)

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Bloomfly22 Palmdale, CA(Zone 8a) Jul 04, 2013

The timing of the make and female flowers can be crazy. The more plants of each squash you are growing, the better your chances of catching a male and female open. If you ever decide to go for seeds, near the end of the growing season, make sure they don't cross pollinate with each other.

Good luck with them!
-Bloomfly

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danderlion Austin, TX Jul 06, 2013

In most squash, male flowers bloom first. I think that's to get the pollinators interested in the patch, with a flower that involves less expenditure of energy and nutrients than a female flower. But I understand that hybrids developed for farming have been bred to put out female flowers first, in that if there is a big crop of squash, there's going to be a male flower out there somewhere, and it only really takes one male to pollinate many females! But if you just have one plant, getting a female and male flower blooming at the same time is just a matter of luck. It has been suggested that one could pick the male flower, and save it for pollinating female flowers, but the pollen is viable for less than a day, so that really doesn't work.

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1lisac Liberty Hill, TX(Zone 8a) Jul 06, 2013

I have found that this is usually an issue only when they first start blooming. How many plants of each variety do you have? Sometimes I will pry open the most mature male flowers and use those to hand pollinate the female blooms. So far so good.

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