Luffa only has male flowers but no female flowers

Luffa is a popular food. It can often be seen on people’s tables. Its sweet taste is very popular among the public. Everyone is very familiar with the shape, cooking methods and taste of loofah, but they may not know how loofah grows. Luffa is different from other vegetables. It has male and female flowers on the same plant, and the corolla is yellow. After the first female flower occurs, most stem nodes can produce female flowers. However, some loofahs only produce male flowers but no female flowers during their growth process, which will affect the growth of the loofah. What is the reason for this? Let us explore the growth process of the loofah.

Loofah. The flowers are monoecious and have yellow corolla. The ovary is inferior, and after the first female flower occurs, most stem nodes can produce female flowers. Male flowers

Inflorescence is raceme, blooms first, female flowers are solitary, have long petioles, and corolla is light yellow. The gourd is oblong, pendulous, and generally 20-

60 cm, up to more than 1 meter in length. The seeds are flat and oblong, about 1.5 cm long, and black. Luffa has a strong root system. The stem is vine-like, five-sided, green in color, with luxuriant growth of the main vine and side vines, and the stem nodes have branched tendrils, which are prone to produce adventitious roots.

Luffa is a plant that is very sensitive to light, and its requirements for sunlight are also regulated. That is, it cannot be exposed to sunlight all day long. At the same time, not only the sunlight during the day, but also the fluorescent lights at home at night will be mistaken for sunlight by the luffa. If it is exposed to sunlight all day long, the luffa will not bloom. Therefore, the amount of sunlight the loofah gets every day must be controlled so that it can bloom.

Another possible reason why the loofah flower does not bloom is that we keep it at home and there are no bees or butterflies to pollinate it, so the loofah flower cannot bloom. Therefore, it is recommended that when planting loofah, it is best to plant the loofah seedlings in a ventilated place, which will be conducive to the flowering of the loofah flower.

The flowers of cucumber, pumpkin and loofah are unisexual. The male flowers only have stamens and no pistils. The fruit develops from the ovary in the pistil, so male flowers will not bear fruit.

It's not just a problem with unisexual flowers. If there is a lack of nutrients, the plant will also not bear fruit. Female flowers alone will not produce fruit. Only when both types of flowers are present and there is sufficient nutrition will fruit be produced. (The nutrients required for fruits are different from those required for roots, stems and leaves.) The lack of fruit may be due to the wrong timing.

Loofah is a unisexual flower. The following are the possible reasons why it blooms but does not bear fruit:

1. Pollination cannot be completed due to the lack of insects capable of pollinating.

2. Because it happened to be cloudy on the days when pollination was supposed to occur, insects were unable to carry out pollination.

Solution: Artificial pollination, use a brush to transfer the pollen from the stamens to the stigma of the pistil.