Question on Butternut

[teigns]

I grow the butternut plant in my Garden. It start have baby butternuts, but some some of them are turning yellow colour (please see pict attached), why it happen like this? no enough watering or somethings?

[Capsid]

The fruits are meant to be yellow. They look great to me.

[teigns]

I know the butternut are yellow finally. But what i mean is the little butternut still stuck with flower on it, cannot be yellow colour.

[Nicos]

Hi there teigns - and welcome to the Vine!!!!

Where abouts are you? I'm presuming not the UK from the fact that your weather is better than the UK.

Whey I'm asking- is that there are many different varieties and you may have chosen one where this is normal.
I'm in France- and can't get hold of the varieties is different veg which I've grown to like the flavour of ( which I used to buy in England)

Your plants look very healthy- did you use loads of manure/compost when you planted- they're very heavy feeders.
It's usually the leaves which show nutrient deficiency first - so I'd not be worried to be honest.

I have grown then in the past- and mine were golden coloured quiet early on- even with the flower!!!

[teigns]

Nicos, I am from Hong Kong, Asia.... Subtropical climate (Climat subtropical). I don't use lots of compost, just normal planting.

[teigns]

Nicos, one of my friend told me to use (High-engrais de potasse) for the butternut. so that the baby butternuts are not easy turn to yellow and died out.

[RedThorn]

Hi teigns and welcome. The plants look fantastic and heathy, however I have 1 question, have the flowers opened yet? if not, they should be ok, If they have already, some of the flowers may have been fertilised and some not. hence the reason for the difference. If they haven't, they tend to die shortly after flowering. best of luck

[chocobed]

Hi Teigns,
I grow butternut and find the flowers wither and die off, turning a brow colour before dropping off. This happens either if they haven't been pollinated or if they have and the fruits are swelling. My varieties sometimes start yellow, turn a light brown with green stripes or even green allover, before eventually ripening to a nice warm peanut brown colour.
Don't worry too much about the colour as long as the tiny fruits remain firm and swell.

[faerieprincess]

If they go yellow and wither away when really small, it means that the floewr hasn't been pollinated. Sometimes you wont' have a male and female flower at the same time, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to pollinate it (unless someone nearby is growing some and a busy bee comes along). But if you have a male flower open at the same time as the female then you can manually pollinate. Either get a brush and get some pollen off the male and then brush the female, or just snap off the male flower and brush the wand part against the females. That should ensure that they are pollinated and the little butternuts will then grow to nice big butternuts!!!!

Even in nice sunny climates you can get lack of pollination. It happened to me in Australia, but once I started manually pollinating all the rest of the butternut squashes thrived!

[faerieprincess]

Oh, and I meant to add, if you want nice big butternut squash, then you will need to only have a few squash on a vine (try for 1 if you want a really big one!). If you have a lot of squash on there they share the nutrients and they wont' be as big. Also, if you snip of the end of the vine, try popping the end into the soil. I've recently read that squash can grow roots from the other end, and then your squash will have nutrients coming from both ends of the vine.

[Lemon]

HI teigns,

lovely looking plant and butternut you have there! Hope they grow into strong healthy fruits!

Is it nice and warm in HK? Am missing the warm weather - was there in Oct last year..weather was lovely - shame about the mosquito bites!

[TonyF]

Hi there teigns - and welcome to the Vine!!!!

I'm in France- and can't get hold of the varieties is different veg which I've grown to like the flavour of ( which I used to buy in England)

I have grown then in the past- and mine were golden coloured quiet early on- even with the flower!!!

Nicos, what types are you looking for I may be able to help you, have several types in the seed box. And if anybody local to me wants any, I've 32 pumpkin plants and 48 butternut plants coming along nicely thank you, just stuff scooped out of fruits last year, dried and then planted - thought I might get up to 5 of eacxh but this is bloody ridiculous.

[Droppey]

I'm going to grow butternut squash in pots, the old guy i'm helping has some horse manure in bags, is this a good idea to mix in with the soil for when I pop the butternut squash in?

[TonyF]

Droppey, yes, should work but make sure it's really well rotted, if it's too fresh it can burn the roots and stunt growth/kill the plant.