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Buffalo, New York

Inside the female flower are a certain number of lobes or segments.

most people say to look for one with 5, i have a female on my main vine out about 20 feet with 7 on her....is this good?

7/16/2007 8:34:06 AM

Ontario, Canada.

Hell yes. Baste those stigmas with pollen and close it up.

7/16/2007 11:14:23 AM

Buffalo, New York

i have found out that the 4 females i pollinated on saturday did not take. i closed them back up but the leaves never shrivled up.

this flower of 7 lobes is already open, can i still pollinate her tomorrow morning?

sinc this is my only plant, cant i just let the bee's do it?

i have alot to learn as you can tell........

7/16/2007 11:25:48 AM

western PA

The 7 lober is already open pollinated.

7/16/2007 12:18:48 PM

Cornell, Wi

The female flower is only receptive for about 4-6 hours in the first morning it opens, 6 am to maybe 11 am lets say, the male flowers I would say are about the same although you can pick the males the night before they open and take in the house. You haaave to stay on top of the flowers if you want to pollinate by hand. The bees and bugs are way ahead of us when it comes to pollinating. I use a sock and cover female the night before, and cut about 4 males or more from one plant, and take in the house and put in cup of water. Go out at 7 am -10 am pull off sock pollinate and tie back shut or it will be open pollinated, meaning pollinated by bees, they can still pollinate after you if you dont tie shut. If you let the bees pollinate which you can, the seeds might be crossed with all your plants or even hubbard squash or something from your neighbors patch. This does not effect the size of your pumpkin but will effect the seeds for next year that are inside of the pumpkin. Thus given you a unreliable seed. Open pollinated. kind of like a mut dog.

7/16/2007 1:02:08 PM