How to identify male and female flowers on your pumpkin vine

Posted by Steve Hines ADD COMMENTS

If you are going to grow a pumpkin vine (or any type of gourd-like vine) it will be extremely important to understand the differences between male and female flowers. These types of vines actually produce both types of flowers and the number of pumpkins your vine produces will be greatly dependent on these flowers.

In general, your pumpkin vine is going to produce male flowers long before it produces female flowers. Because female flowers need to be pollinated, there is no point of them blooming first because the male flower needs to be present in order to pollinate it.

One way that you can tell the male and female flowers apart is by looking at their location on the vine. Male flowers tend to grow several inches away from the vine, while female flowers tend to be located just a tad bit off of the vine.

Another way to tell the difference between the flowers is to look inside. The male flower has what is called a stamen and looks like a thin cone in the center. This is where the pollen is located. The female flower has a pistil and it looks like little round balls in the center.

The third and most obvious way to determine the gender of the flower involves looking underneath of it. The female flower will have a pea-sized lump underneath the base of the bud. As the bud grows and prepares to open, the lump will gradually get bigger until it is about the size of a donut hole. If pollination occurs, this lump will develop into your pumpkin! The male flower is lacking this lump.