Butternut Squash Stem-End Rot

This winter and last winter a few of our butternuts are getting some kind of rot starting around where the stem attaches. It is brown and soft. If we catch one at the point shown in the photo, a shallow trim is enough to salvage it for the roaster. Does anyone know what this rot is? Better yet, how to prevent it? It affects few enough that we can keep up eating them no problem, but January is when we really want to be focusing on finishing up the pepos, not mostly eating moschatas. If they don't get the rot, they usually store until June or so.

This is a home-saved population of several butternut lines. We're not saving seed form the poor keepers for now, but it's be nice to know if it's genetically-linked or seed-borne just in case.

(I think you can safely ignore the lines on the side of the squash; they're just marks from the storage racks, and don't seem to correlate with the presence of rot.)

I usually get this when peple help me with the harvest.  Their instinct is to carry the squash by the stem and these get the rot first.  They seem really easy to damage during harvest, but get stronger as they cure.

I don't know if it's the same for your situation.

That could be. We certainly don't carry them by the stems, but it could be something about how we pick.

Does the rot show up shortly after picking or during storage for you?
I'd say most of ours is after a few months indoors.

Some years I have experienced that stem-area rot in Butternut types especially.
I try to harvest before any frost touches the fruit, as I notice they seem very susceptible to damage from cold.
Even when I have good-storing specimens, the stem area seems to be the first part to go bad.

I have considered the matter before, and I wonder if the stem side is the last to finish ripening fully and so does not store as well?
I notice that any type of squash who have had their stem snapped off rot faster, so I don't carry by the stem.

A good feature of Butternut types is that one can cut off a portion of a squash to use and the rest of it will keep fine on the counter to be used later in the week.  Though once there is rot, it sometimes affects the quality of the entire fruit.

My Butternuts this year are still storing well, in the woodshed, atop ibc totes full of water, on hay, tarped... best place I've found yet.  

Andre Wiederkehr wrote:That could be. We certainly don't carry them by the stems, but it could be something about how we pick.

Does the rot show up shortly after picking or during storage for you?
I'd say most of ours is after a few months indoors.

For me, a week to a month later.  Squash we pick ourselves last until February before showing defects, so it's very noticeable.