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engineeredgarden
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Location: NW Alabama

why aren't female flowers on butternut opening?

This is my first attempt at butternut squash, and the female flowers aren't opening at all. The vines are 8 feet long, have plenty of male flowers (opening), but that's it. The tiny flowers are there, just don't open. Why is this?

EG

DoubleDogFarm
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Maybe you should try whispering sweet nothings. :wink:

I'm thinking it's one those give it more time. I keep reading that most squashes produce male flowers first.

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jal_ut
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Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

It seems that the first flowers that appear on squash often fail for some unknown reason. It has never been a real problem here and soon there are more squash than I can use. Patience.

Squash flowers open in the morning and close soon afterwards. Perhaps you missed the opening?

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Both my melons and cukes have about a dozen male flowers on them with no sign of females yet. While watching the little bees and wasps, honeybees, and the big bumble bees all going at the flowers this morning, I had a theory: Maybe the male flowers open first to alert/attract the neighborhood pollinators, so by the time the females open, there's a good number of them buzzing around.

garden5
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DoubleDogFarm wrote:Maybe you should try whispering sweet nothings. :wink:

I'm thinking it's one those give it more time. I keep reading that most squashes produce male flowers first.
Yeah, just give it time. They start out small, but once they get going, you'll have squash coming out of your ears.



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