Squash vine borers are my guess. Check the base of your stems. You may find tiny holes with sawdust looking material coming out of them (called frass). If so, you've got worms eating through your plants. If they're at wilt state, you've probably already missed your window, but for your own satisfaction, you can slit the stems vertically and you'll see the worms inside the hollow of the stem. Pull them out with your blade or a wire and cut them up like a maniac. They have ruined your crop, enjoy making them pay.

Once you're done with your violent celebration, mound up as much moist and fertile soil as you can around the stem, all the way to the top of the vine, and keep it well watered over the next week or so. You may be lucky.

I personally have found tons of borers in my squash plants in Texas. So far, my defense has been to do the above if they've made it in. Otherwise, I just check each plant daily and peel off any flat red eggs they've laid (usually 10-50 a day) and throw them far from the plant. My guess is I'll still lose, but so far I've postponed the inevitable.

If you're in Florida, you've got the same problem we do in Texas - the squash vine borer is active pretty much from May until September. Your best option if you don't want to be a nut like me is to plant solid vine zucchini (I believe there are a couple varieties) or treat them like lettuce and do succession plantings, pulling them out as they wilt.

Good luck.

But they all exhibited the same symtoms at the same time and they were pretty good looking plants when I sprayed them. I was spraying as a preventative since i saw a little mold on a couple of plants. Odd that they all got weak a couple of days after spraying the with Neem. I did finally find a thread on here about don't spray when it is 90 degrees with Neem, but my thinking is they meant do not spray when temp is 90 degree.I sprayed at dusk and it was closer to 80 degrees bu i need to clarify if they meant don't spray Neem if temps are reaching 90 degrees. This is the first time i have used the product and have never seen plants do this. It is like they are melting. At first the leaves turned upside down and now they look like they have not been watered. Wierd. I will cut one of the dead ones open and look but since i was already spraying them how could the borers got to them?

My yellow squash just did this and died. No sign of any bugs. My Zichinni is fine. The yellow squash was heirloom. I can't find anything in the books.

Certainly could be something else. Symptomatically it sounds like my experience with borers, so thought I'd mention it.

I have had powdery mildew cause wilting symptoms like you describe. If you see powdery mildew (which might be what you are calling mold) try a baking soda solution all over the plants (spray in the evening like you did with the neem). That might revive them and if it's PM you need to spray regularly and hopefully the plant will recover but it's kinda iffy. I don't know if neem would work for PM, but if neem did cause damage you would be seeing burned leaves not a general wilt where the leaves don't look crispy.

HTH,

Kristi

Hi guys, thanks for your input. i took photos today but how do we attach photos? i don't see any attach buttons, just Optional Link URL and doesn't that mean I have to post it somewhere like my website and get url for it to show up here? I know when right click a photo in my picture file I don't see a url.