How do squash pollination

First, the squash plant produces many flowers, both male and female, sequentially, not all at once. Second, it takes as many as twelve visits from a pollen-laden bee to completely fertilize the female flower.

Think about this for a moment. But on average, many more visits are required to accomplish pollination. So understanding flower formation in squash plants is helpful. I looked around on the farm for squash flowers to help illustrate this complicated business, and here are some that I found. This pumpkin has lots of flower buds.

One is open, one is faded, and at least five more are coming. But they are all male. No female flowers are visible in the picture. Maybe the plant is training local bees to check regularly for nectar?

This zucchini shows the sequential nature of blossoming. Some flowers are faded, and some are coming. Only one female flower is in bloom. For the plant, each flower is a roll of the dice. If pollination does not occur, the plant moves on to the next flower. Here is a female pumpkin blossom that closed yesterday. Was it fertilized? Too early to tell. On this pumpkin, one female blossom has closed and another will open shortly.

Squash vine borers are just horrible in my part of Texas. Because of this, it is almost impossible to get a great crop of any of the standard summer squash varieties grown in our area yellow crookneck, zucchini or patty pan. As I talk to people, I get more questions about how to control this destructive little pest than any other.

Quite frankly, if you are an organic grower, there is not much you can do to beat the borer besides growing your plants under row cover if you are not organic, Sevin dust does a fairly decent job of keeping borers away, but it needs to be applied every four or five days.

If you properly grow under row cover you will definitely stop the vine borer. However, you will also prevent bees and other pollinators from reaching the plants. Because of this, if you want any fruit, you will be forced to pollinate your plants by hand.

Luckily, hand pollination of squash plants is very easy to do. Flower Identification - Hand pollination of squash blossoms requires no special skills or tools. All you have to do is be able to identify male and female flowers. On squash, this is very easy to do. Female flowers will always have a tiny fruit under the flower. Male flowers grow on a long narrow stem. You can also tell the two apart by looking at the reproductive organs found in the center of the flower.

The female flowers contain the stigma. The stigma generally looks like a flower in its own right. It has several "bumpy structures" that cluster around a central opening. As a courtesy, the online Almanac Garden Planner is free for 7 days.

This is plenty of time to play around on your computer and try it out. There are absolutely no strings attached. We are most interested in encouraging folks to try growing a garden of goodness! Try out the Garden Planner on your computer for free. Replying to James Repine: The University of Arizona's Hydroponics programs found that electric toothbrushes are great for hand pollinating tomatoes.

Short of bees, last I was at the farm it was the most-used method of pollination. I see very few bees in my garden. I have plenty of flowers on my beefsteak tomato plant, but no tomatoes. Can you hand pollinate the flowers by hand? Skip to main content.