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Troppofoodgardener
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Location: Tropical North, Australia

Self-pollinating zucchini?

Does anyone know if this is normal for zucchini? The zucchini pictured actually grew to a decent size and tasted like normal as far as I could tell!

However, my plant has two types of flowering females. Ones that bloom revealing orange innards - which require pollination - and ones that look as if they're full of seed (like pic below) and do not require pollination.

[url=https://img230.imageshack.us/I/zuccflower.jpg/][img]https://img230.imageshack.us/img230/1479/zuccflower.jpg[/img][/url]

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lorax
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Location: Ecuador, USDA Zone 13, at 10,000' of altitude

I've seen that on my black zucchs - I assumed that it was hermaphroditic flower production, cheered a little (because I didn't have to pollinate them myself), and sat back and waited for the zucchs.

I've never seen it on any other cultivar though - grey zucchs are markedly bisexual in their flowers, as are whites.

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Troppofoodgardener
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Location: Tropical North, Australia

So can I assume I have 'Black' zucchinis? I got mine as a seedling from a local grower with no labels other than "zucchini". It is kinda cool that they're self-pollinating, although I got mighty confused at first.

Never heard of white or grey zucchinis! They all look pretty green to me.. ;)

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lorax
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'Black' zucchs differ from 'Grey' and 'White' in a couple of places - for one, the fruit of a 'Black' is that solid, nice dark green and fairly smooth. 'Grey' are paler, hairier, and have stripes; they also hollow out sooner and are better for stuffing. 'White' have pronounced stripes and are grown for pickling. The leaves also differ - 'Black' zucchs have solid green leaves, whereas 'Grey' and 'White' have this nifty silver venation.

However, only 'Grey' and 'Black' are suitable for the kind of heat we deal with in the tropics. All of the trials I've done with 'White' it's cakked it before producing very much.

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Troppofoodgardener
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Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2010 10:49 pm
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Haha! you said "cakked"! :lol: very similar to an Aussie term here, "carked".. which means more or less the same thing.

I'll have to look up these grey and white zuccs to check out the silver venation you speak of.

Yes.. sometimes I wished I lived somewhere more sub-tropical or temperate than where I am. Think of all the cool plants I could grow!
But hey... I'll take walking around in t-shirt weather anytime than covered up in winter woollies!

garden5
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I was going to say it was unlikely you got a black one, but then I looked at your location. Since you are in the tropics (or at least another continent), I think it is very possible that you may have gotten a black or gray.

Here in the USA, the broad standard is the green zucchini, but other places surely have other popular varieties.



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