Small uchiki kuri squashes going brown, soft and rotting

[Russel Sprout]

Hi all

Sorry to be back so soon with another "what the heck is going on" type post!

This time it's about some of my small uchiki kuri squashes. The good news is that some of them have made it to a decent size and are maturing nicely. But some of the small baby ones and adolescents start by getting small brown patches like this:



And end up going fully brown and soft like this:



This isn't just now; it's been happening for the last few weeks.

Does anyone know what might be the problem and what I can do to prevent it? If not this season, would at least be good to know for future reference.

Many thanks as always

Max

[Small pumpkin]

The fruit hasn't been pollinated, that's why it's doing that. It perfectly normal, not all the fruit will get to full size. You could hand pollinate. Pick a boy flower, stick the middle of that into the middle of a girl flower!

[Kirk]

I have the same squash and more or less the same problem.
So far 2 reasons:
1: They did not get pollinated and so gave up and died+fell off. Not helped by the fact that I never saw a male and female flower open at the same time, often not even on successive days. Usually the female flower only appeared when the males were all dead and new ones no where near being a flower. I eventually hand pollinated one - just one.

2: Noticed that one I thought I had pollinated successfully had a small mark on the outside that looked very much like something had burrowed into it. That died soon after. I had hand pollinated that one so had hoped for success, which it looked like until the small burrowing mark appeared.

How big has yours grown? My plant is sort of several meters long in one direction and a bit less in the other. Basically it is running mad. But just the one fruit. Which looks not like the images.

[bario1]

The plant may be ditching new fruit to concentrate on the maturing ones? Or it may be a lack of pollinators this late in the season?

[Chris11]

Yes, same as the other answers.

Not been a good year with weather. Terrible August, so had few courgettes for same reasons of lack of flowers and pollination, instead of the hoped for glut.

On the other hand, my plants are still healthy and growing, and powdery mildew is under control, so I'm still optimistic of continuing harvest.

Growing other plants to attract pollinators will help. Also the right kind of feed, a tomato type feed and not a general feed, will help stimulate flower production.

[Somerset_newbie]

I've been having exactly the same problem with exactly the same squash type. All but two of the "infant" squashes have turned brown and rotten. The plant itself effectively shut down in mid-August, with the leaves wilting and no more female flowers budding (though it's still putting out the occasional male flower, as if to mock me).

[Russel Sprout]

Many thanks for the helpful replies and sorry for the late comeback. Glad (and yet sorry at the same time) to hear that others are having this happen to their squash as well as me.

Thanks for the tip RE pollination. That hadn't occurred to me, but now that I think of it, I remember the same being true of courgettes when I looked into it a year or two ago (because the end of my courgettes were rotting). So next year I will definitely try my hand at pollinating.

But one thing I should add is that we have had some larger fruits do this as well, ones that are around the size of a mango. So it's not just the tiddlers. Is that still likely to be due to lack of pollination? Can fruits even grow to a reasonable size if they have not been pollinated?

Kirk - to answer your questions... It is a bit tough to measure the size of the plants as they are a little inter woven to say the least! I would say at least 2 or 3 metres at a guess. We did nip them out though a few weeks back. I read mixed opinions on that but decided to give it a go in the end. In terms of fruits, the largest are around the size of a football. And we have some spaghetti squash which are larger than that.

Somerset_newbie - perhaps a little later than your, but my plants are now starting to "shut down" as well; leaves are crisping up and wilting, and mildew is starting to take hold.

Cheers

[Kirk]

I have only the one squash but it is looking fine.

Slightly off the topic the more normal butter nut squash next to them have done nothing, at present they have lots of what appears to be flower buds but the temperature is too low and the time of year too late.

They may as well get pulled out as they cannot at this time do anything.