Larry Blanchard writes:
Well, no, he said "extended stem" which sounds like the female flowers to
me.

I'd interpret it as describing the male flowers. But no matter.

Anyway, I've got the same problem. The female flowers do produce fruit,
but it turns yellow and dies from lack of pollination when it's only an
inch or so long.

The most popular zucchini grown here in Australia is the Blackjack. The
beauty of growing zucchinis is that they don't need pollination. We pick
the fruit on the day that the female flower opens or the day after. At
this stage the fruit is about 4 inches long and we usually have to break
the opened flower off the end of it. Apparently your variety of zucchini
is very different if the fruit is not like this.

This morning I found a male flower and about 4 female flowers open. Out
came the Q-tips and I did a little artificial insemination.

You can break the male flower off, tear away the petals to leave just the
central pollen stalk, and rub that over the swelling inside all the female
flowers in turn. It works perfectly. Once pollinated, you can leave the
fruit to attain giant size like a mature marrow. But the plant won't bear
as many fruit if you allow them to grow large, and the largeer fruit are
lacking in flavour.

But I noticed what may be the root of the problem. Down inside every
female flower, around the base, were several ants. That sound familiar
to anyone?

Very familiar. Not a problem at all. The ants are just sipping the
nectar bounty. The bees go for the excess of pollen in these flowers.
--
John Savage (news address invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)