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Hobbiton New Zealand

I have a new found grower with a couple of really good looking Squash growing, sitting at about the 450lb maybe even 500lb mark. they have been sunburned and now the patches of burn are starting to get a bit soft and grow a bit of mould what is the best way to deal with this problem. or is he best to cut them and get them on some scales. He is a second year grower but got the addiction bug pretty good I promised to phone him in about 14 hours from now with the answers so dont let me down please.

3/6/2007 1:30:08 AM

Steve I'm sure others with more experience will chime in here. I do remember some posts on this subject last season here. Have you seen the fruit?

If not,, then as I recall the info given b4 he could scrape the area with a sharp knife and remove the soft tissue. Then apply sulphur dust or Captan and try and get it dry. I also saw some suggestions that you cut a side vine or a smaller fuit from another plant and apply the "ooze" that comes from it for healing the spot.

It depends on how deep the soft spot is,,try on the smaller fruit if it is deep then I suggest weighing the bigger one b4 it rots completely.

Best of luck to your friend.

3/6/2007 5:08:22 AM

Roanoke Il

Put a tarp over the top of the fruit make sure you keep it dry and plenty of air flow. pluss due what dan suggested and it the rot isn't to deep she should be fine,,

3/6/2007 6:09:56 AM

[email protected]

I had an 879 pounder back in 1998 that was roaring in growth each day, surely to hit 1000 pounds I thought. 3 weeks from weigh off, I got a soft spot, about the size of a quarter, so I scraped it an put captan on it, then went to work.
When I got hom, the spot had grown to about a foot across and the mold, as you described was on there. Sadly, the mold is from the inside alot of the times, maybe not yours, but the rot is from the inside. More than likely there is a crack on the bottom and the air is already inside the fruit.

If you think it can be saved, the best option is to get some captan and after you have scraped the area with a spoon, dust it with captan and put a fan on it. Getting it dry (and out of the direct sun, sunhouses are your best option over the fruits) is the biggest thing. Good luck.

3/6/2007 6:54:34 AM

Anamosa, IA [email protected]

My son has the same problem in 2005. We just scraped off the bad stuff and applied daconil straight from the bottle. It healed up just fine.

3/6/2007 8:57:02 AM

Hobbiton New Zealand

About 4 hours after I posted the question he phoned me back to say he had cut the smaller of the 2 squash off and it was starting to rot out at the bottom so he carried on and cut the bigger one off as well. He then loaded it all up at about 9pm and headed off to the neighbours place to weigh them. 189kg and 207kg from store brought seed and a patch area of 70sq foot and leaf area of about 300sq foot.
Not a bad effort for a second year grower I reckon.

3/6/2007 3:00:48 PM

Ohio

Couple years ago Beachy told me about applying deconil straight from the bottle onto a bad spot on a pumpkin, since then its now the only thing I will use. I found that Deconil dries the bad spot out very fast.
I have tried sulfer and captan before many times before I used the deconil and I never could get a bad spot to dry out very well using ether one, even if I used sulfer or the captan straight from the container, it always seemed to stay wet.(Anyone eles find this to be true?)

3/6/2007 6:53:59 PM