Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Could someone please tell me what's happening to my butternuts. All goes well until they get to a certain size and then they seem to rot and fall off.

Those fruits don't look much bigger than they started. Are they getting pollinated? Early fruit drop can be caused simply because you don't have enough bees. Try hand-pollinating with a paintbrush and see if that helps.

Some nutrient deficiencies can cause early fruit drop, too. Do you have any other signs of deficiencies?

Oh, and btw, blooms on squash and cucumbers are either male or female. If you don't have male flowers for some reason, that explains a lot. If you pollinate by hand, be sure to move back and forth between male and female flowers. And just to be really clear, the female flowers are the ones with the little squashes on them. The males don't have little squashes.

Thanks, will try. There are literally hundreds of flowers. I am using iron chelate when the "canary" beans tell me to.

There are no other signs of nutrient deficiencies.

How often are you cycling the system? and the interval

Synapto. I had 2 butternut plants.
I planted 1 in my AP, and one in the dirt.
The one is AP hs put out 2 leaves
the one in dirt has gone MAD, easily 15 times as big as the AP one. No flowers yet, but I am wondering as to the suitability for AP.
I do cycle HEAPS though, cos I have only the one bed atm.

Synapto, I've read for gardening squash of all kinds in dirt to plant flowers nearby that attract the pollinators. Around here that would be something like cosmos or callendua. Perhaps you could do the same in your AP system.

or some native trees that flower profusely...
sorry KP have to advocate native and tree spicies to encourage
permanant inhabitance.

c1, I would agree. We have been increasing the natives in our yard as well. The question is whether the squash is inside the greenhouse or outdoors. Indoors, native flowers that attract pollinators would be best whereas outdoors shrubbery or trees nearby may help.

I am pretty sure the beds are outdoors??

Hey I'm all for native trees, excepting my fruit trees, everything non-native is slowly being replaced...

Looks like the squash is too wet. check air circulation and how wet the plants stay.

Butternut is outside. Flood and drain is taking about 15 mins to flood, 5 minutes to drain. There are plenty of wild flowers nearby including a large native fruiting tree, but I don't see many bees here. There are definitely male and female flowers. Sorry the image is on it's side, I'm in a bit of a hurry, fetching brood fish 600km away.

If you don't have a lot of bees around, you can take steps to try and make them "feel at home." This information is specific to North America, however, the info may be helpful to others.

http://www.xerces.org/Pollinator_Insect ... _sheet.pdf

And, it may help you to find out what kinds of questions to ask locally.