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Sacramento, CA

Anyone... anyone....

I have female fowers that start, but never open. Vines are growing like crazy. All my efforts shading and cooling have done nothing. I have still not had a single female flower open. I am getting tired of raising vines with no pumpkins.

I am open to suggestions.

Thanks to all.

8/1/2006 11:43:09 AM

Anamosa, IA BPIowegian@aol.com

It sounds like you may be heavy on nitrogen and short on phosphorus. Nitrogen will cause an explosion of green growth at the expense of fruit. Maybe try a high P fertilizer like Miracle Gro Bloom Booster.

8/1/2006 11:55:47 AM

Doylestown, PA

I'm a rookie and don't mean to imply that I know anything about growing a big pumpkin.

But I had the same problem on three plants. One just fixed itself, on the other two, once I terminated most of the secondaries and the main vine the females started opening. I was nervous to do it, but I was out of patch...

8/1/2006 12:36:48 PM

Sacramento, CA

I am running out of patch too, I had to remove my walking boards, i have mains crossing each other and it takes a few minutes to determin which plant threw which secondary.

So add phosphorus now??? I will do it at lunch.

8/1/2006 2:01:11 PM

Mount Prospect,illinois

MAtt,
At this point, i have no pumpkins either....but, I have stopped fertilizing and now i seem to be getting more females (i was able to pollinate 3 over the weekend. now lets see how the heat/lack of experience messes me up). Right before stopping the ferts, i threw down a 0-46-0 "garden-tone" brand phosphorous fert so that may have been what started the females. I really dont know for sure though.

8/1/2006 4:10:22 PM

Sacramento, CA

There are females, just none open. They get to the size of a cherry with amout 1 inch closed flower on top and then the stop, shrivel and die.

8/1/2006 4:30:30 PM

Utah

it the high temperatures... Sacramento has been in a heat wave the last couple of weeks.
I think your females are aborting because of the heat even before they open.
try shading them and keeping them cool with water or ice or whatever you can think of that you have access too.
good luck !

8/1/2006 4:36:13 PM

Mocksville, NC

Yeah at this point i would hit them with P like peters bloom booster 10-50-10 like what was suggested above water souable, and drench the the whole plant early in the evening, and soak it in, and if you have some really long secondarys go ahead and terminate them, and bury the ends,
get them babys growing Emma.

8/1/2006 4:37:20 PM

San Diego, Ca.

Matt, I've had the exact same problem this year. It sounds like your soil might be deficient in Phosphorous except in my plants case even the males weren't opening and the growth became stunted. I gave the plant a good shot of 15-30-15 and had flowers blooming in 3 days. Added some Ironite also and now the plant is growing like crazy.
I think Gordon has it right...this heat has just been too much this year. All my pumpkins abort before opening too. But wouldn't you know it, it looks like my first pumpkin on this particular plant is finally going to have a female open but the only problem is that its on a secondary vine thats growing up the side of a chain link fence and the pumpkin is 5 feet off the ground! That's par for the course this year.

8/2/2006 12:29:06 AM

Sacramento, CA

I am not sure how much the soil was lacking.. I have been using 16-16-16 for fertilizer. It has been about 3-4 weeks now since that went down last. The vine growth has been pretty amazing for my first year. But, now I need pumpkins, not plants.

I went ahead and hit them with 10-52-10 bloom booster last night per the suggestions above. I will keep y'all updated.

8/2/2006 11:17:08 AM

Coventry R.I.

hi matt , frank4 rookie here . look at my post in kenny ,s question.

8/2/2006 12:29:02 PM

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Matt, when did you start your seeds and when did you transplant the seedlings outside? It may be that if you didn't start early enough, then the plant is just not ready to produce any females yet.

8/5/2006 7:08:55 PM

Sacramento, CA

Started around May 23 (late) and in the ground June 1. Great news, I got to polinate a pumpkin this morning. One of the Wyatts Wonders. Lookslike tomorrow, I will pollinate an AG. Several more to come. the bloom booster hit the plants on Aug 1. First pollination Aug 5. Nice turn around. Now my problem will be contriolling how much vine I am dealing with. The patch is mostly full.

Funny that the Big Max plants do not look ready to pollinate yet. Oh well.

Thanks all for the help.

8/6/2006 2:37:33 AM