Help with courgettes please

[farendwoman]

[farendwoman]

Third attempt to put text in......
Variety Goldmine.
lots of fruit forming, but heavily pitted with brown dots.
watering them every day, and they are in well manured soil.

[Penellype]

Not sure what this is but have a look at this page, which might help:
https://apps.extension.umn.edu/garde...ruitspots.html

[Nicos]

Strangely my yellow courgette got that at the end of the fruiting season last year -and it goes into the flesh.
I'd forgotten about that.

[nickdub]

Got to be either a disease or a deficiency - not seen it before.

[ameno]

Those sunken dark patches are caused by a secondary infection. They are not the primary problem.
The problem here is lack of pollination. That fruit didn't pollinate properly, so it stopped growing and started to die, and then bacteria or moulds got in and rotted it. Sometimes the fruit doesn't always just die straight away if it doesn't pollinate properly, sometimes it grows a little first and then dies and rots.
I get that all the time if I don't hand-pollinate. I find insects cannot be trusted to pollinate courgette and squash. In future, just hand-pollinate: pick of a fresh male flower, remove the petals, then rub the pollen into the stigma of a female flower.

Best to remove any fruit which start to rot, as it can spread to any fruits they are touching, even if those other fruits did pollinate properly.

[farendwoman]

Wow ameno
thank you for that very clear explanation.
it does make sense!
shall be pollinating all of them in future.

[Penellype]

Those sunken dark patches are caused by a secondary infection. They are not the primary problem.
The problem here is lack of pollination. That fruit didn't pollinate properly, so it stopped growing and started to die, and then bacteria or moulds got in and rotted it. Sometimes the fruit doesn't always just die straight away if it doesn't pollinate properly, sometimes it grows a little first and then dies and rots.
I get that all the time if I don't hand-pollinate. I find insects cannot be trusted to pollinate courgette and squash. In future, just hand-pollinate: pick of a fresh male flower, remove the petals, then rub the pollen into the stigma of a female flower.

Best to remove any fruit which start to rot, as it can spread to any fruits they are touching, even if those other fruits did pollinate properly.

I would agree with this except that Goldmine is parthenocarpic, which means it doesn't need pollinating. I grew it a few years ago and it had huge numbers of fruits.

Definitely agree that any rotting fruit should be removed ASAP.

[ameno]

Just looked it up; so it is.
The symptoms look just like incomplete pollination, though. And indeed, even with a parthenocarpic variety, I would probably still diagnose poor fruit set.
I've never grown parthenocarpic courgettes before, but if they're anything like cucumbers and other parthenocarpic fruits then just because the fruit can set without pollinating, doesn't mean every single fruit will successfully set. Some fail, for one reason or another, usually as a result of the plant aborting them, due to water stress, usually (which isn't necessarily a result of lack of water at the roots; it can also be caused by high temperatures or by the plant already having too many fruit).

If you can hand pollinate them, that would still be the most reliable method. Unlike with cucumbers, pollinating a parthenocarpic courgette won't turn it bitter, so there's not harm in doing it.
Otherwise, just keep picking the fruit - the plant can only bear so many at once, so if it already has a lot then it is liable to abort further fruits.