Just be patient or use a male flower from another squash if you have them and don't care about saving seeds. You'll get males eventually, sometimes they start off with females before the males, especially summer squash (not sure what you are growing).

Many of the newer hybrid varieties have preponderance of female blossoms.Antique varieties have a lot of males preceding the females. Need the females for max production.

Ah ok.. This is my first attempt at growing any form of squash or pumpkin and I don't have any other forms growing. This one is small sugar (pie) pumpkins. I have a few of the plants growing so I will just wait and see.

I have done quite a bit of web searching and never seemed to find this particular issue so I was a bit puzzled as to why I would not be getting male flowers.

The additional squash idea isn't a bad one though. I'll remember that one next year when I try and plant some butternut squash or something too.

To be honest, it's a bit frustrating seeing a beautiful female flower open and not having any way to pollinate it.

on a different note.......growing pumpkins for the second time (last year too wet). I have many small marble size pumpkins with closed flower but they shrivel up and die. I'm about 1.5 months into season and vines are long. What can I do to help the pumpkin along?

Note: flower is tightly closed so not a pollination issue I don't think. any ideas........Thanks

My guess is that the plant simply isn't ready to set fruit, and that this problem will correct itself. Any other ideas out there?

BTW, I've had the same variety of squash produce a preponderance of male flowers, first, one year; and then a preponderance of female flowers, preceding the male flowers, another year. There must be something to do wit conditions. Still, the end result is the same. The vines always produce plenty of fruit by the end of the season.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Well, I did have a male flower open this morning although the stamen and antlers didn't seem very well developed at all. I have plenty more female buds and male buds in various stages of development so I think it probably is just a waiting game for things to get going.

I've always thought I was patient but I guess learning about squash and pumpkins has taught me that I'm not.

Planetes, I just logged on to see if there was a reason I have so many blossoms on my pumpkin plants but no pumpkins. I think your question answers mine. A question I have for you is how do you know if a bud is a male or female? This really may be a dumb question but I am so new at this. Thanks.

Dereks, It's really quite simple and this works for all squash related plants (i.e. pumpkins, gourds, zuchinis, etc) as far as I'm aware.

The simplest way is to look at the flower (or bud). If there's a miniature fruit directly between the flower and the stem, that's the ovary (which becomes the fruit) and that flower is female. If the flower turns directly into stem (and usually the stem is longer from where it branches off the vine), the flower is male.

They also look differently inside with the stamen and antlers/stigma structures, but the baby fruit is the easiest way to tell them apart at a glance.

I've learned an amazing amount in a single season of trying to grow pumpkins. The single biggest thing these particular plants teach you is patience.

Thank you planetes. The patience does need work. :)

?Hi,
I have 6 or 7 pumpkinn plants. They are growing well(last year I had a powdery substance that killed my plants).My question is that it is July 19th and i have plenty of male flowers but very few females. The females seem to grow at the end of the vine in little clusters. I can see the little yellow fruit but the flower does not open. I have plenty of bees and other insects. Will the female flower ever open? I don't want the female to die without being pollinated. I have read that the males open first to attract the bees and train them to come to the plant. THEN WHEN THE FEMALES FINALLY OPEN THE WILL BE POLLINATED. I just don't want to grow pumpkins for nothing like last year. Thanks

Planetes, I don't think a butternut will fertilize a small sugar pie. If you're not saving seed, try a bush summer squash. I do agree about learning patience.

planetes - I have the same problem! I have a zucchini plant so maybe I will try that. I just think that it is going to do really well at some point, because I see a bunch of male flowers but they are small. I found it to be a strange problem :) This is my first year growing pumpkins as well, and I am so excited. I am growing CT Field (Jack O' Lantern) and Spookie varieties (pie).

It took some patience (of course) but mine seem to be taking off now. Out of 3 plants I currently have 7 or 8 pumpkins growing and more female flowers forming. I'm hoping to get 2 or 3 from each plant which seems to be proceeding along nicely. The largest is about the size of a softball at this point but since they're small sugar/pie pumpkins they are developing nicely.

One odd thing I did notice is that one of the three plants has fruits that seem to be more of a light pale green than the dark green of the other 2. *shrug* we'll see how things turn out.

One thing I didn't mention is that I'm growing them in pots on a patio and I currently have the fruit resting on small pieces of wood to prevent any sort of rot issues from the concrete. I live in an apartment but the management is amazed and seems to have no issues with it. If anything, they're fascinated that I'm accomplishing it at all.

I'm having the same problem Planetes is... my squash plants have a couple of wide open female flowers right now, but all of the male flowers are tiny and undeveloped, they don't look like they are even close to opening. And the thing is, my plants are heriloom varieties, not some kind of new hybrid watzit as far as I know. Like P said, the season here has been very cool (it was below 70 this past weekend! But it will be in the 90s this weekend and for a few more weeks.) and I am afraid I have planted them too late. In addition to this, they are in a rather shaded area, and only get maybe 6 hours of direct sunlight all day (I tried to tell my wife it was a bad idea to plant them there, but she would rather plant them than toss out the extra transplants we had). I'm guessing that the plants have a deficiency of some kind- either weather is too cool, the soil lacks nutrition, or the plants are just not getting enough light.

It seems to be mostly a weather thing for me.. I'm now getting tons of male flowers and few females. It's probably because each plant has 2 pumpkins growing currently so the plants don't think they need to produce more. We'll see what happens this week (80s expected for a week).

I've noticed one thing.. cool temperatures (i.e. low 70s) seem to trigger male flowers, warm temperatures (i.e. low 80s) seem to trigger females. The fluctuations the Seattle area is getting this year causes mine to bounce back and forth in the cycle and it has been having trouble syncing up.

OK, I'm starting to panic here now. My winter squash vines have a number of small female flowers (one opened already, but it could be a loss), but NONE of my male buds have opened, they are shut tight as clams and look very small. Does anyone have any idea what is causing this odd and backwards state of affairs? While the vines catch up once it gets warm starting this weekend? If my female flower already opened yesterday, how long before it is toast?

Also, I might be able to get a male blossom for c. maxima from someone at my community garden (my squashes are not there, but in my back yard). If I cut a couple of blossoms off, how long will the pollen inside be good? DO I have to use it immediately?

Thanks for any help!

I've heard if you cut them off the night before they open they are good in the fridge for about 4-5 days. But I've never tried this myself.

Is it possible to remove an unopened male blossom and hope that it has viable pollen? They don't really seem very mature, however. Too small...

It's unlikely they'll be developed enough to be useful. I will say that once things get going you'll get tons of blossoms. You have to learn to accept the fact that you'll lose several female blossoms. Only a relatively low percentage will actually pollinate even if you do it manually like I did. I would give it a couple more weeks before I started to panic.

Thanks for the advice. I suppose it is kind of pointless to panic about when flowers develop out of synch. What I really need to panic about (or rather resign myself to) is that the plants are so late to develop overall this year. It's almost the middle of August now and I might not set fruit for another two weeks. My squash are fairly small varieties, but I just don't think they're going to produce and ripen in time before cold weather comes and ruins the plants. Oh well, maybe next year will be better. :)