I have 4 great cantaloupe plants dark green & vigorous. They have blossomed 3x's and no melons have set. Can anyone suggest what they might need? Must be nutrition problem I think? Thanks JW Otuba
I have flower garden as well-lots of bees there-all I have seen are plain old yellow blossoms(thought they were both sexes om canteloupe)? Have watermelon 5 ft away doing fine.
Cantaloupe vines produce two different types of flowers. The male flowers are just a yellow blossom, while the perfect flowers have a swelling on the base of the flower which will eventually turn into the fruit if it is pollinated adequately. While it has perfect flowers, like I already mentioned, it needs to be pollinated by bees, and if they arent getting that, then that may be a reason for low fruiting, as the perfect flowers need multiple visitations to ensure fruit set. High temperatures might stimulate the plant to create more male flowers, which might be a reason you don't see many female flowers. Also, depending on the maturity of the vine, it could just be getting ready to produce perfect flowers, because when they first start to flower, the flowers are usually all male.
Some Q & A here that might help http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/vegetables/cantalou.html How to hand pollinate http://pollinator.com/squash.htm Liz
If you want to hand pollinate, just take a little paint brush or cotton swab or q-tip... something along those lines.. and get the pollen from the male flowers and then dust it against the perfect flowers.. do this a few times and it should set well enough.
