Question
I live in northern minnesota and have grown butternut squash for years.  Last year and this most of the squash formed on healthy plants start out looking as if they are normal, but before very much growth occurs they begin to die.  They turn yellow and then black.  Last year I quit counting after about 30 of them, on three plants.  I believe I harvested less than 10.  The year previous to these two years the plants had what I thought at the time was blossom end rot.  I have changed location in the garden so this is third location.

Having read that putting black plastic on the ground under the plants increases  heat for the roots   have done that for quite a few years, and did see an increase in the amount of squash.    I start my plants in the house early and they are beginning to vine and sometimes there has even been a flower forming when I put them out.   The transplanting has always gone well.

I've heard from several others that they have the same problem of most of the small squash dying.  Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Answer
Gertrude:
It could be nothing more than lack of pollination. If a fruit is not fully pollinated it will not grow. Usually this only happens to a few squash on a plant. Have you seen bees or wasps on the flowers? If the plant is still flowering, try hand-pollinating some of the blossoms and see if that helps.

Blossom-end rot usually doesn't kill the squash and occurs only at the blossom end. It is not a soil-borne disease, hence changing locations would only have an effect if one bed had more lime in it than another. It mostly is caused by inconsistent watering, which in turn effects the uptake of calcium. Addition of lime to the soil also helps.

Elyse