What Is the Male Flower on a Melon?

Male and Female Flowers

• Male flowers on melon vines have short stems and grow in clusters of three to five. Male flowers are smaller and emerge before female flowers. They also lack the ovary, or miniature fruit, at the flower's base. Female blooms are borne on longer stems, and the swollen area at the base of the bloom develops into fruit when adequately fertilized. Because melon plants bear both male and female flowers on the same plant, you can plant just one to save garden space.

Melon Pollination

• Male flowers produce the pollen necessary to pollinate female flowers. Melon flowers rely on honeybees to act as pollinators, because the pollen is sticky and cannot be carried by the wind. In areas with small bee populations, you can ensure pollination by hand-pollinating. To do so, use an artist brush to gather the sticky yellow pollen from the center structure of the male flower and transfer it to the female flower, or you can snip off a male flower, tear off the petals and rub the pollen structure on female flower's stigma.

Receptive Flowers

• Melon flowers are only receptive for one day. They open early in the morning and must pollinated before closing in the evening. Pollination of all open female flowers must be carried out at the same time on the same day. If one bloom is pollinated one day and two or more the next day, the first pollinated boom produces large fruit and the later-pollinated blooms are often small or not fully develop. If necessary, remove the earliest female blooms if only one or two is open at the same time. By waiting, you are more likely to find four or five blooms open at the same time.

Importance of Same-Day Pollination

• Pollinating all flowers on the same day allows fruits to develop more evenly and reach the same size. Generally, melons can only produce five or six fruits per plant. To ensure plants are a good average size, if any fruits begin to develop after the main five or six fruits are set and growing, snip them off the vine. Additional fruits cannot fully develop or reach a good size and they interfere with the development of the established fruits.