Author Topic: Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.  (Read 1365 times)

Seacarrot

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Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.
« on: August 05, 2017, 19:33:44 »
So I'm growing 3 butternut squash hawk F1 around the base of my Sweetcorn, the plants look healthy and are spreading around, I've got lots & lots of fruitlets formed behind female flowers, but all so far have turned pale and fallen off.

Now I'm assuming that means that they have not set, and I should purely blame the bees for sloppy pollinating.....

Or could it be something else...? As I've not grown butternuts before, but have grown other types.

Any advice.?
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ed dibbles

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Re: Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2017, 20:24:31 »
Butternut squash are harder to grow than other kinds as they generally need more heat and a longer growing season. You have done the right thing getting an F1 hybrid increasing your chance of success.

They belong to the cucurbita moschata group and will not pollinate with other kinds of squash. (c. pepo, c.maxima and c.mixta all pollinate with one another but not c. moschata  ) So unless someone else is growing butternuts nearby the bees only have your three plants to work on. This however should be plenty and the fruit seem to be being pollinated to some degree.

So perhaps the recent cooler weather with rain does not suit them. In other words they need more heat. Some of my onion squash (uchiki kuri) always seem to go brown and fall off so it's not just you.

I suspect over the next week or so proper fruits will form. The question then will be is their enough time left or them to mature properly.

The only moschata I grew was a cheese type called musquee de provence, (120 days from planting to harvest) good looking but watery flesh inside. I started the seeds two weeks earlier than other squash late march and later planted them out under a cloche for a couple of weeks to increase the chance of success.

The other squash had no such mollycoddling. :happy7:

One good thing about moschata is that it seems resistant to powdery mildew that plagues other squash.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2017, 20:36:37 by ed dibbles »

ed dibbles

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Re: Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2017, 21:01:14 »
Here is some useful advice from a site I admire greatly. It comes from a Glasgow perspective.

http://www.growyourown.info/page147.html

The info I just looked up from various sources all mention the same thing. Butternuts need heat. :sunny:

gazza1960

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Re: Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2017, 07:07:24 »
your not alone seacarrot,our one hot spot for afternoon sun should be perfect for the corn and squashes but the corn are only knee high and the squashes are running rampant but no end growth either,its fun to watch them spiral round the other things but seems my pan will be begging for fruits that are not going to appear .......indian summer......who knows.

Gazza

ACE

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Re: Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2017, 09:43:40 »
I thought I was alone in having butternut problems. I could not get them to germinate, but after throwing the peat pots on the compost heap they decided to start. Put them in the ground and have got the biggest, longest, bushiest plants I have ever seen. But up to a week ago no fruits. Then as I was cutting off the ends of the longest runners before they escaped to another plot I spotted loads of smallish fruits hiding under all the leaves. Do I expose the fruits to the sun by trimming back some leaves or just let them happen on their own. Heat is not a problem as we are getting plenty of sunshine between the showers.

Digeroo

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Re: Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2017, 11:52:35 »
When it comes to moschata I personally prefer Tromba d'Albenga to a butternut.  The skins are thinner so you do not have difficulty cutting them.  There is much more flesh to seed.  And they are a little less fussy about the temperature.  They keep well too. 
though they do like a good deal of heat and light to get good germination. 
And Barbara is doing well too.  I have rigged up a cheap plastic table cover for my sweet potatoes and she has managed to sneak inside.  It was a good 30 degrees in there yesterday. 
 

Seacarrot

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Re: Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2017, 11:53:19 »
It gets worse, last nights temperature got down to 6 degrees here.....

It's been averaging 8 - 10 degrees at night. Think my Squash have got flu.

Shoulda knitted them little squash bags.
Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Vinlander

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Re: Lack of butternut on my erm.... butternut.
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2017, 12:35:34 »
I don't grow butternuts myself but I tried a squash (Blue Banana) this year on the muscat grape method (roots just outside the polytunnel in late May, leading the shoot inside by late June).

It went berserk and produced a 35 x 15cm zeppelin last week with what appears to be a properly hard skin.

Worth a try - though it had started the tiny fruit before it was big enough to lead inside, so hand pollination may be necessary.

Cheers.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2017, 12:39:33 by Vinlander »
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

 

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