AriesVal writes
On Fri, 8 May 2009 15:10:41 +0100, K wrote:


I've always pinched out the male flowers and never noticed any detrimental
effect on the production of courgette fruits.

Why do you pinch them out?

It seems to encourage the plant to produce more female flowers - I may be
wrong of course.

Could be fun to try an experiment and pinch out on some plants and not
others.

Cross pollination is the ideal for plants, to introduce new genetic
material and overall health of he species, so many plants have means of
avoiding self-pollination. Courgettes for this by producing male flowers
first (at least, I think it's the reason, but thinking through the logic
I'm not so sure, but the behaviour is clear) and later on producing both
males and females. So you start by having all males, and if you pick
them off you then start getting females - but you would anyway even if
you hadn't removed the males. So the question is, do you get a higher
proportion of females on the plants where you have removed the males?
--
Kay