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Location

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Date Posted

San Antonio, Texas

What are the thoughts of everyone on pinching or dead-heading the male & female flowers after you set? I am of the opinion of only doing it if the fruit is the size of a basketball.

When is the best time to do it? Early morning or late evening. I have been using Captan when I cut anything off but not burying what I cut afterwards. Should I be doing something else?

Any and all thoughts and comments are welcome.

Boga

10/28/2006 2:17:13 PM

Rhode Island

boga

we continue to cut any additional females that pop up on the plant during the entire season. we do not bother to cut males as it compacts soil during all the traffic in and out of the plant. beside the male flowers do not effect in our estimation, the final growth of your fruit.

pap

10/28/2006 2:33:32 PM

Thornhill, Ontario, Canada

Should one wait until they have two fruit set to start cutting females? Obviously one of those fruit should be culled. But, does it help to have a backup?

10/28/2006 2:50:21 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Great answer Pap and interesting to me as I always assumed that any additional growth (including male flowers) would take away energy or growing power from the plant and in turn, the size or potential size of the pumpkins.

10/28/2006 3:19:22 PM

Santa Rosa, CA.

The only reason we cut all male flowers after we have our fruit set is to help control cucumber beetles.

10/28/2006 11:57:06 PM

Damariscotta, Maine

We remove male flowers also for the same reason. The flowers are fragrant and we thought this might be attracting the bettles or other insects as well. Any other thoughts?

10/29/2006 12:24:40 PM

Minnesota([email protected])

I was thinking the male flowers were a blessing in regards to cucumber beetles. The beetles would congregate in the flowers, and didn't seem to do much leaf damage. Maybe I'm wrong, but if it wasn't for the flowers, I'm guessing the leaves would have suufered much more damage here.

10/29/2006 1:09:18 PM

Rhode Island

crammed

we pollinate on the main starting at twelve ft out from base.
by doing so you are assured ( if you allow all but the poor angled secondaries to grow) of having nine or ten sets of sides before the first pollinated fruit. ( also by using this method under most circumstances by the time you start pollinating you are just about ready to dead head those first sets of 11 to 12 ft sides.

we also dont concern ourselves with any cucumber beetle infestation because once they start to show up we hit them with a couple strong systemic or contact insect sprays. usually they are history from there on out. same for borer season.

i would caution however regarding the amt of mollasses sprays growers put on their leaves. it attracts a ton of afids.
the only thing we have found to kill the afids is a spray of liquid merit.

pap

10/29/2006 1:24:12 PM