How long do female zucchini flowers normally stay open?

[Gary Wong]

I pollinate my zucchini by hand in the morning.  Sometimes I have open female flowers but no male flowers. I'm wondering how long (or how many mornings) will the female flower open and the window to hand-pollinate it be available.

Thanks!

[TCLynx]

Hum, not sure.  I'm used to there being lots more male flowers than female?

[Gary Wong]

Yeah, I started with a lot of males.  Then for some reason, I have lots of females.  Seems they are good for about 2 days, then start to close. 

[Edwin Mercado]

Following this line of question, how long is male pollen viable after being removed from the plant?

In other words, could I harvest male flowers and/or their pollen for use when females appear?

Ed.

[TCLynx]

I'm not sure but worth a try I guess.

Edwin Mercado said:

Following this line of question, how long is male pollen viable after being removed from the plant?

In other words, could I harvest male flowers and/or their pollen for use when females appear?

Ed.

[Vlad Jovanovic]

@Edwin...I'm not sure if this applies to zucchini (don't see why it might not though) per say,  but I do know that for certain dioecious species (plants that are either all male, or all female) unless you take certain precautions when storing the pollen, it will not last very long. Temperature and humidity are the culprits. 

You can store pollen in a glass vial or jar (don't use plastic baggies or any plastic that 'breathes'). First you deal with the humidity by placing an indicating desiccant at the bottom of the jar/vial. (And don't use those stupid baggies of silica you get when you buy sneakers). What you want is something like Cobalt Chloride, when it is dry it is the colour blue, as it absorbs water molecules it will turn purple then as it absorbs more water it will turn pink. That way you will know when/if to its done absorbing all it can.

Once you've dried the pollen in your sealed jar/vial you can now freeze it. I've heard that it can last 3 or 4 years this way, though I've never actually kept pollen for that long (little less than a year at most).

[Wil Miles]

As for your question i just planted some from homedeot and they flowered qwuickly but the flower was there opening and closing for atleast a week before it fell off best i can offer good luck