On Mon, 09 Jun 2014 21:15:51 -0700, Todd wrote:

On 06/06/2014 08:21 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
The amount of growth will be limited by competition for water,
nutrients and sun not the number of plants. If you left them all it
would make little difference to the total just each would be smaller.
If you want to thin them wait until the true leaves (not the cotyledons)
appear and open, then choose the healthiest one and cut off the others.
The main thing here is not to damage the chosen one.

Hi David,

Question: which will get me more fruit? Three smaller
plants crowding each other or one larger plant?

There is no way to know for certain in advance especially without
knowing the type of zuke plant; bush/vining?. Do you want a greater
number of fruit or larger/heavier fruit? You'll get the greatest
number of better quality fruit by harvesting often before the fruit
become too large.. in the end by harvesting smaller fruit often
there's a much better chance of ending up with more fruit by weight
and also better quality fruit. It's best to harvest zukes when
they're 4"-6" long, then the plant will keep putting out more in its
quest to reproduce by producing viable seed... by allowing fruit to
become large and seedy the plant will stop producing.