Sounds like it might be a mosaic virus. The squash are lumpy, bumpy and have a mosaic discoloration. Virus is transmitted by bugs. No cure. You would need to pull the plants and destroy them ASAP. Photo would help.

Yes, they are lumpy, bumpy..they start out very small and nice and yellow and then et just a few inches long (if that) and turn the dark orange color.

Sent an email to the house to see if the wife can get a picture to me before the day is over and will post it then

Thanks again for the help

Ok, finally got a pic from her, not the best one but, should be able to see what is going on

Here is a link that might be useful: Squash Pic 5-30-11

Looks like not getting pollinated from here. You need to have more bees and other pollinators visit. Plant something with a yellow flw nearby - I let arugula bolt as the flws attract a wide array of pollinators. We have many flowers always blooming within feet of the veggies to attract pollinators.

Dan

Concur; It looks like a Mosaic virus. No immediate solution, but there are many resistant varieties vailable for future plantings.

Here is a link that might be useful: mosaic virus

If the plants are from saved seed, could be due to last year's cross pollination.

If mosaic virus, I don't see any symptoms in leaves

An image search using "squash mosaic virus" without quotes results in lots of images. Does your plant match up?

I don't see indicators of a mosaic virus. I see a powder on the lvs and aborted fruit and an inconsequential bit of mottling.

Dan

Ok, the white powder on the leaves is from where she took it upon herself to sevin the plants last night.

As far as the mosaic virus images. I can say the leaves on my plants do not look like ANY of the images I have seen when searching for the virus....however, all of the squash on these plants DO look like a lot of the images in the virus search listings.

I am going to attempt to get a couple more pics this am before work and post those to see if it helps indicate whether its lack of pollination or mosaic or some other virus.

I went out and grabbed some quick pictures before work. The plants look 100% healthy as far as the leaves are concerned, nice and green...no distortion or anything else.

If one didnt look under the leaves for the squash, they would never know we were having an issue.

Also, someone mentioned saved seeds. This was from new seeds this year that I purchased.

This is just some random pics I snapped quickly. The last two pics are 4 squash off of 4 different plants.

http://img35.imageshack.us/i/squash2.jpg/

http://img804.imageshack.us/i/squash3.jpg/

http://img651.imageshack.us/i/squash4.jpg/

http://img600.imageshack.us/i/squash5.jpg/

http://img716.imageshack.us/i/squash6.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/squash7.jpg/

http://img195.imageshack.us/i/squash8.jpg/

http://img508.imageshack.us/i/squash9.jpg/

Try pollinating a few fls by hand in the early morning and see if they take. If not, then there may be a small chance of a nutrient deficiency causing them to abort (albeit I see no indicators of such in foliage).

Dan

From what I can see, the plants themselves seem ok. And some of the squash in the pictures must be getting pollinated since they aren't just staying around an inch then falling off.

So I'm wondering if there are enough hours of *direct* sun + enough nutrients in the soil to get bigger squash before they start getting really bumpy and seedy?

What you really need to do is to pick the older really bumpy squash as the plant will just waste energy making seeds in those instead of using the energy to make the younger squash bigger.

That part of the garden gets full son until around 7pm. I would hate to think that is the issue! Last soil test I did in the garden 2 weeks ago showed everything to be in line.

If it is pollination...I guess the best thing to do would be to remove the immature squash and then hand pollinate and see what the results are...correct?

I'm not sure I understand what is proposed to be removed, but you transfer pollen from male fls to female fls. I prefer a Q-tip.

Dan

Was talking about removing the squash that is still on the plant that looks like the ones in pictures 8 and 9....no reason to try to pollinate those since they are so far gone is there?

Good Morning!

Just wanted to say thanks to those that replied on this issue. Already went out this am before the heat sets in and hand pollinated what was available to be pollinated.

I also removed all the immature/unpollinated squash and tossed them. I also noticed there were many, many more male flowers than female but, I did what I could do.

There are also many young females that are very small that were not open for business. Will keep a check on those and keep hand pollinating for awhile and get some type of flowers in there to help the bees out.

Thanks again for the help and will let yall know when these start to take!

You might want to tell the wife not to hit the plants with Sevin while they are flowering. Bees are very sensitive to Sevin.

Chuck

She knows better but, she got a little out of control while I worked over the weekend because she was convinced some insect was causing the squash problems.

Normally we dont Sevin unless we have a serious outbreak of something but, she was/is as frustrated as I was and was trying to help so, cant blame her for that one!