Q: I planted 100 pumpkin seeds of 40 to 50 pounders, and they all came up and are growing great. However, out of the 100 plants, I only have 19 pumpkins growing. Practically 99 percent are male blossoms. I blame it on the variety and next year, will plant another kind. I can't blame it on the weather, it has been great so, what is the problem? I have a different variety, that grows 30 to 40 pound pumpkins growing next to the large ones and I have maybe 30 or 40 pumpkins out of 100 plants. That is better, but I will not have much to sell, and I will be out of a lot of money. Do you have any advice for next year?

A: I have had several people ask about pumpkins that are not producing fruit. One situation had several people plant pumpkin seeds that came from the same package into three different gardens. One garden is producing pumpkins and the other two are not.

Pumpkins are a tough crop to sell, unless you can do it by the acreage. Pumpkin plants often only bear one or two large pumpkin fruit, but can bear eight or more of the small ornamental pumpkins. If the one or two large fruited pumpkins abort when they are small, you lose all the production from that one plant. Pumpkin plants only produce male flowers when the vines are starting to grow and then have a mix of male and female flowers after each branch of the vine has around 8 to 10 leaves, which are necessary for food production for the fruit.

Pumpkins need a lot of water to produce fruit, especially large to very large pumpkins. If the soil dries out, female flowers may not be produced or the small pumpkins may drop off the vine. Too much water in the soil can kill some roots and cause the same stress as not enough water in the soil. The best pumpkin production occurs when they are watered very regularly.

Pumpkin fruit are not just water. They have a lot of starch, sugar and other chemicals in the seeds and the meat of the fruit. All of these chemicals are produced in the leaves. Many of these chemical processes shut down if the vine is stressed from temperatures in the 90s and nighttime temps in the 70s. They may not produce female flowers and already pollinated female flowers will fall off if the plant gets stressed from high temperatures. Pumpkin pollen can die or not germinate properly if the temperatures are in the 90s.

Too dense of a planting of pumpkins can have so many leaves that bees may not find the female flowers on the single morning they can be pollinated, so the flowers fall off. Pumpkin flowers with inadequate pollination will fall off and each female flower requires several bee visits for successful pollination. Pumpkin crops can sustain a honeybee colony for each acre of pumpkins.

Other factors can cause low pumpkin production. Too much nitrogen fertilizer could cause the plant to grow large leaves and long vines but not produce many female flowers. Heavy insect damage from squash bugs can kill female flowers and small pumpkins, lowering the amount of starches produced and thus the fruit remain small.

Generally, pumpkin plants will produce female flowers once the conditions are favorable. This may be too late in the season to grow big pumpkins or even for small ones to mature before the expected sales date. Check the seed package information on timing from planting to harvest. Use pumpkins with different maturity dates and plant some of each variety early and some later so that some pumpkins are producing female flowers all season long, no matter what the weather does.

Email questions to Jeff Rugg at [email protected]. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.