How to Generate Female Squash Blooms

Begin planting squash in the early spring. The shorter exposure to sunlight and low temperatures result in the squash plant generating more female flowers.

Start plants indoors if there's still danger of frost. Choose a location where the young plants will remain cool, such as in an enclosed porch or on a windowsill away from a heating vent.

Move squash plants to the garden when danger of frost has passed. Squash plants often produce male blooms first for pollination. The male flowers have a slender stem. It may take two weeks before the squash plants generate a female flower.

Plant more squash every two weeks to create an ongoing supply of squash, if desired. The later you plant squash, the more male blooms they generate, due to the warmer days and longer periods of sunlight. You can remove male blooms to eat, but it's necessary to leave some male blooms on the squash plants for pollination.

Apply ethephon, also called 2-chloroethyl phosphoric acid, as a foliar spray in a concentration of 50 mg per liter. Using this chemical at this concentration increases the number of female squash flowers, reported researchers from China's Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry in the 2002 issue of "Cucurbit Genetics Cooperative Report."