How to Hand Pollinate Squash

If your summer squash plants look really healthy, but the baby fruit have a tendency to shrivel up and die, you've got a pollination problem on your hands. Summer squash plants, including zucchini, crook neck and patty pan squash, are dioecious, which means that the plant produces both male and female flowers. In order for the fruit to develop, the female flowers need to be pollinated with pollen from a male flower. Bumblebees, honeybees and other insect pollinators usually do the job of moving pollen from the male flower to female flowers-but if your plants aren't producing much fruit-you can hand-pollinate. Here is how.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. In order to hand-pollinate, you must be able to tell the difference between male and female flowers. Female flowers have a tiny squash right behind the flower (and if your pollination efforts are successful that tiny squash will develop into a squash rather than shriveling up). If you look inside the female flower you'll also see a stigma, which is a sticky, round female reproductive organ. Male flowers have straight stems and anthers (the male reproductive organ), which look like small cotton swabs dipped in bright yellow pollen.

2. Squash flowers open up in the morning and stay open for one day. Hand pollination works best if you do it as soon as possible after the flowers open. To hand-pollinate, snip off a male flower and peel back its petals, leaving the pollen-covered anthers exposed. Nuzzle the anthers onto the stigma of a female flower, leaving a dose of pollen behind.

3. Discard the male flower after you've pollinated three female flowers. You'll know your hand pollination worked if the little squash behind the female flower begins to grow and the female flower falls off.

4. To encourage more insect pollinators, plant flowers that produce lots of nectar, including sweet allysum and bachelor buttons near your squash plants.

Resources

• DigginFood