The first 2 fruits on one of my squash plants have shriveled up and fallen off. I haven't seen any bees on the flowers, so I'm thinking that pollination isn't taking place. Has anyone tried hand pollinating? If so, what methods worked best for you? I was going to use either cotton swabs or paint brushes.
Has anyone tried hand pollinating?
I haven't tried it with squash but I have done it with other plants using either just a fingertip or a small paintbrush. With squash you could just go with something simple, albeit labor-intensive, like pulling some of the stamens off the male flowers and rubbing the pollen on the pistil of the female flowers to pollinate them.
There is definitely a scarcity of bees this year - they are getting stressed from both the dry weather, which limits the number of flowers available for food, and the mysterious "vanishing bee syndrome" that is affecting the honeybee population.
Weege, I'm trying it. My biggest problem has been that this variety of zucchini produces female flowers (with fruit) before males, so the first few were doomed to die. Therefore, I ate them :). When the males finally appeared, I simply began taking the petals off a male flower (sounds heartless, I know, but they WERE late) and smooshing it around in the female flower. Seems to be working. The smaller cuke blossoms don't seem to be taking as well. I used a paintbrush on them, but don't see any results. I'll be using a paintbrush today on the pattypan, spaghetti, butternut and sweet dumpling squash. I wish us all success!
Margo
Thanks for the info and good luck Margo! I've been using a long paintbrush and I think it's paying off. The fruits that I pollinated are looking good and forming the proper shapes.
I haven't found it necessary to hand pollinate any veggie crops yet, catmad. I have seen zero honeybees this year, but the plethora of bumble bees, moths, and other critters seem to be getting the job done. Got so many squash I have to carry them to the food kitchens, and they don't want to see me coming anymore! I have had to hand pollinate in the greenhouse, though. I keep a pack of Q tips in the drawer of the bench, and they seem to get the job done. They're small enough to be easy to handle.
Hi StonoRiver,
I just didn't want to take chances :). The bumbles didn't seem to have found the garden, and I wasn't sure that ants could get the job done. I'm over it now, because the honeybees and the lttler bumbles have definitely found the flowers. I'm finding new fruits every day, and trying to keep up with the zucchini is getting interesting!
Margo