At this point in time, if it isn’t still the Squash Borers it is probably Bacterial Wilt.
https://gardenplanner.almanac.com/plant-diseases/us-and-canada/squash-bacterial-wilt/
You and Beau would make great commiserating garden friends. He tries his hardest to grow Sweet Corn and Watermelons and is always unsuccessful, and you and your Opo Squash problems, LOL!
Thanks! From that info., I’d say it’s NOT bacterial wilt (and I’ve yet to see cucumber beetle #1 since at least a month B4 I put that 2nd (actually 3rd) Opo plant out. Plus, “Lemon cucumber” and Asian squash plants not even 15 ft. away are generally doing well, presently (except not fruiting much.)
However, I did have one Lemon Cucumber and Opo #2 die a very similar death, not too far away, earlier this year, but I attributed that mainly to them getting drowned by all the rain. The Opo that is going great guns is also close by, but in a big pot.
It’s almost as if young Opo and similar (squash like) plants get zapped by something coming up from the ground, and in each case, the stem, a little way up, dies first, with the failure progressing first up, and then down the stem, with the top of the plant hanging on for a while.
I’ll try dissecting the (dead except the top leaf, now) Opo tomorrow to search for squash borers. I’ve seen no external signs of them.
Next year, maybe I’ll use BT and even inject plants with some as a possible preventive measure.
Roofers in the driveway at 6:52 a.m.! Sounds like elephants & a rock slide up there ... lots of banging & pounding, too. Nerve wracking! Our house is a Big project - they will be working through Saturday & hope they can finish.
So the latest update .... no plywood under the shingles .... it’s deck board (2 x 6’s). So far, slate shingles are “coming off nice”.
Heh, lettuce and onions are the plants I REALLY can’t seem to grow (except some onions started in pots from spring onion’s bottom 2” - I have “some” luck with those.)
My one “good” Opo plant is just exploding now (with growth). One out of 4. (3 died.) It had stopped growing during our hot spell, and now it’s just ridiculous — I have to go and “reroute” parts of it almost every day to keep it out of other plants. I’ll bet the various branches totaled 15 ft. of growth, yesterday to today, if I added them all up. No more food for this puppy, except Super Phosphate, to try to get more blooms.