Zuchini problems

[380tom]

Hello all
I am a first time poster here on this forum. I am trying to find out why my zuchini are not growing to full potential? I have many flowers and they actually produce a zuchini but once it is about 2-3 inches the end (flower end) starts to turn brown then kind of rots and dies. I have planted
Zuchini before and never had this issue. I also have a squash plant that is doing the exact same thing. This is very frustrating as I figured I would be reaping the benefits by now but all I have is a bunch of 2 inch rotten veggies.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

[RamonaGS]

I would say that is Blossom End Rot. It happens when your soil is not sufficient in calcium. It's more common in tomatoes, but I found an article that says it happens with squash too. If you grew your squash from previous years in the same soil you planted in this year, it could have been absorbed by the previous plants. What kind of fertilizer have you used on them? Does it have a good supply of calcium in it? I found the article I read, so here's a link. Do you think this could be what's happening?

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/ ... atment.htm

[applestar]

BER is definitely a possibility.

Another if the fruits are only a couple inches is that the blossoms are in fact not being pollinated. Is there plenty of bee activity? You could try hand pollinating.

Also, last year with my Tromboncino squash which is not actually zucchini, they tended to develop BER if they were underwatered and spoiled when around 4-6".

[rainbowgardener]

If the blossom end is turning dark and mushy (rotten) and sunken/indented, while the rest of the fruit is still looking healthy, that probably is BER. It is due to a lack of calcium in the plant, but that is more often due to plant difficulty uptaking the calcium, not to lack of calcium in the soil. One of the things that can cause the uptake difficulty is uneven watering, letting it dry out and then getting a lot of water (e.g. heavy rains).

Female squash blossoms come with a baby squash already present behind them. If the flower is not pollinated, the little squash may still grow for awhile, get 2-3" long and then start shrivelling and dying. At that point though, it probably doesn't have the characteristic dark rotten end of BER and the whole thing just starts shrivelling.

[imafan26]

Another possibility is that the fruit is being stung. I don't know if you have this problem where you are, but we have fruit flies that will sting very young fruit that are only a couple of inches long. They will turn yellow and die. To prevent them from being stung, Very young fruit are usually bagged after they are pollinated until they are bigger and the skin is tougher. If larger fruit are stung, it does not kill the fruit, and the fruit remains edible.

[rainbowgardener]

I think that might be a Hawaii thing. I never heard of fruit being "stung" until you started posting about it We have fruit flies, but they usually only congregate on over-ripe or rotting fruit and they don't appear to do a lot of damage.