To do this, remove a male flower from the vine and remove the petals. If this process is successful, the female flowers will begin to set fruit shortly afterward. A pumpkin plant not setting fruit is an oft-heard complaint. The absence of a crop can be caused by a number of factors, including weather. When conditions are humid, pollen does not transfer as well.
According to the Missouri Botanical Garden, bees are also less likely to fly their routes when the weather is cool and the sky is cloudy. Adequate amounts of water and sunlight are also important when growing cucurbits as is proper spacing because if a pumpkin plant is stressed, it may produce only male flowers. This can result in a lack of fruit. Plants that are infected with pests can also be considered stressed and should be treated in ways that won't harm bees.
If you want a good pumpkin crop, you should also avoid overfertilizing the plants with nitrogen, which will increase the amount of foliage the vine produces while reducing the overall number of flowers.
She holds a B. These are the male, or staminate, blooms. They usually start blooming a week or two before the female, or pistillate, flowers. And unlike the females, they contain no visible teeny tiny baby — aka the ovary — at the base of the stem. How does that typically happen? You guessed it. When your plants are growing outdoors, honeybees, bumblebees, and squash bees usually do that work for you.
The ideal pollination time is during those golden hours when both types of flowers are open. One morning, before I had researched how pumpkins are pollinated, I awoke to find a flower with a tiny baby pumpkin at the base aka the female flower and another flower from farther down the vine fused together in what appeared to be a sort of embrace.
The easiest way to do this is to first identify a male flower. The stamen should be covered with fuzzy pollen. Next, peel back the petals until the stamen is exposed. You can also take a paint brush or cotton swab and use it to gather yellow pollen from the male flower. This will keep any nearby bugs from landing there and transferring pollen away from the flower. Now that you know, you can be smarter than I was, and watch out for those male and female flowers.
Now even those of us who have to grow our gourds somewhere artificially warm and bugless can enjoy the promise of pollination. See our TOS for more details. Uncredited photos: Shutterstock. As a freelance writer, she contributes to several websites and blogs across the web. Hi Laura! Thank you for this post! Take things into your own hands literally and do the pollinating. But how do you tell the male and female flowers apart?
The male flower has a long stem, while the female flower has a small fruit forming at the base see picture above. Pick a male flower. Break off the petals so that the central stamens are exposed, these are covered in pollen. Poke this into the female flower so that the stamen touches the central stigma and the pollen is transferred.
One male flower can be used to pollinate several female flowers. Pollination is best done in the early morning as the female flowers close up in the afternoon.
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