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stella1751
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Location: Wyoming

Squash failing to mature

I thought some of my patty pan squash had blossom end rot because their blossoms dried up, the female grew to a flat 2 to 3 inch disc and died. However, others on the same plant are doing quite well. I've been studying it online, and I now think it's one of two things: 1) Failure to be pollinated, or 2) Underwatering.

I've got paper wasps and bees, and I see them doing their jobs. In fact, I've got three beds of moss roses near one problem bed, and based on the local reception, many a bee dance must be done in my area. The other producing bed is in uncomfortably close proximity to a paper wasp nest. Could they still need help with pollination?

Then again, given that I have plenty of pollinators on hand, could it be simple underwatering? My money's on underwatering. Has anyone experienced this?

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Tinybu88les8
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Location: Southern California

Mine have done that...I don't know what caused it. I seem to get one like that every now and again.

codyjp
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my squash are doing the same thing, I've just doubled up my watering to 2 gallons/plant every other day. We will see what happens.

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stella1751
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That's what I'm doing, codyjp. I trickle water my squash (no automatic waterer), and I've doubled the stream to see whether that makes a difference. Can you check back and let me know what you determine? I'll give mine three days to get their act together. Then I start hand pollinating. Ugh!

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stella1751
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No more dying squash until this morning. Yesterday, I fertilized. Thinking eight gallons of manure tea would serve as their water for the day, I did not water the small front bed. Today, I found another flattened disc of a patty pan. I dug my fingers into the bottom of this raised bed and determined the base soil was dry as dust. I'm seriously leaning toward underwatering as the problem and am going to continue to crank up their daily fluid consumption.

What have you found out, codyjp?



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