Ok, I've been growing veg now for two years and am baffled by one thing, how to tell a male flower from a female?
I see it all the time Cucumber all female flowers or take of the male flowers. Pumpkins squashes male flower female flowers.
How to tell the male from female what am I looking for is the male well endowed does the female have a little penny covering her modesty :tongue3:
Please advice.
Mrgrower
On the plants you mention the female flower has an embryonic fruit behind the flower. The male produces the pollen, the female produces the fruit.
Strangely enough on one of my cucumber plants I had what I thought was a male flower but didn't remove it straight away and it flowered like a courgette or marrow flower and now has a round fruit, no idea what it is but am letting it grow to find out
Quote from: Palustris on August 12, 2014, 20:23:14
On the plants you mention the female flower has an embryonic fruit behind the flower. The male produces the pollen, the female produces the fruit.
I thought it was a joke post at first when I read the header :tongue3:
Agree entirely with Palustris' answer. Once you know what you are looking for it is really obvious in all but very few odd cases - susan1 you might have had one of those.
photos show a male and a female flower (female has string around it)
Why have you tied string around the female flower?......is this the first of many stupid questions I'll ask on this forum :wave:
The inside of the flower looks different too. The male has a single pointy bit which is covered in pollen, whereas the female has a sort of ring of several rounded bits.
I'll try to get pictures to show what I mean, assuming my plants are willing to cooperate...
Quote from: JustUncle on August 13, 2014, 13:49:39
Why have you tied string around the female flower?......is this the first of many stupid questions I'll ask on this forum :wave:
If you want to save seeds and avoid the possibility of a pumpkin crossing with a courgette or any other squash family plant (they cross very easily) - then the best way is to tie the female flower closed before it opens ... and then hand pollinate it with the correct male flower(s) ... and tie it closed again until it sets the fruit. Then you can be sure that no insect has put the pollen of a different squash in to the mix ... and your seeds from that fruit should grow true to type.
Genius, thanks. :icon_cheers:
Good advice Squeezyjohn, I'd add that the male flower also needs to be sealed before you use it for pollinating otherwise a bee may have already visited and sprinkled a little pollen from elsewhere!
Quote from: Jayb on August 13, 2014, 15:32:57
Good advice Squeezyjohn, I'd add that the male flower also needs to be sealed before you use it for pollinating otherwise a bee may have already visited and sprinkled a little pollen from elsewhere!
That's what I do. Bees get everywhere and so do the little black flea beetles that have a fascination for big yellow flowers. I close both male and female, then pick the male and bring it to the female, untie the male and use the tie to place on the stem of the female under the embryo fruit, This is to mark it as handpollinated. Then I tear off the petals of the male and only leave the yellow bit with the pollen. I then open the female flower and use the bit with the pollen like a paintbrush on the yellow bits inside the female flower. Then I close the female flower again to prevent any pollen from another squash. The flower will eventually fall off, but the marker around the stem of the developing squash fruit stays on so I know that this one has pure seeds.
There are no dumb questions, only questions we don't know the answer to. And for every question that gets asked and answered, another ten people on the forum will have learned something, but they were too self-conscious to ask for themselves.
Sorry, my squash flowers are all closed up today.
Thanks for this. Pollination on my courgettes and squash has been very poor this year so think I'll have to do some hand pollination if it ever stops raining.