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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 18, 2012 3:41:21 GMT -5
Get seed of Gill's Golden Pippin and Scarchuk's Supreme. Between the two of them, you will decide you like pepo types again. Don't hold your hopes out for the acorn, it won't deliver. I think that I'd have to have liked pepos in the first place before I could like them again!!! But I'm adventuresome, so I'll give it a go. |
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Post by ilex on Nov 21, 2012 4:18:55 GMT -5
I am with you as I've never tried a very good pepo in winter. Either wrong taste buds or very good mostachas and maximas. For me, they are for summer squash, naked seeds, decoration, or hog feed.
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Post by terracotta on Dec 1, 2012 11:14:42 GMT -5
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 1, 2012 12:16:39 GMT -5
I found a watermelon relative with the large taproot like B. alba. Hmmm. I wonder how it would handle -25F? |
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Post by terracotta on Dec 1, 2012 15:11:13 GMT -5
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Post by terracotta on Dec 11, 2012 17:59:39 GMT -5
if nothing else would be a good start to this project I really doubt there can be such a thing as a low water-need melon; that's a big fruit for a vine to produce, and much more succulent than a squash. ! I like challenging crops that are thought to be unsuitable for home gardeners to play around with. And I'll continue the desert research into extremely drought tolerant or drought avoidant plants. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 9, 2013 2:00:57 GMT -5
This will continue to be an ongoing thread: Hopefully for many years. Nothing to report recently due to the winter weather... And to the failures of the manual pollinations to set fruit.
I chose Bryonia to work with at first, because they are in the same sub-tribe as watermelon: Very closely related. The seeds of Bryonia look like tiny watermelon seeds. The fruits look like tiny watermelons, etc. Both species are dioecious.
More specifically, I chose Bryonia alba, because it is a winter hardy local weed with a perennial root, so germplasm is easy to obtain and work with.
The chromosome number doesn't match, so that sucks. Later on I might branch out into other species. Tetraploid breeding seems like a way to bridge larger gaps between species than is possible with diploid breeding.
I'm wondering if I could expect any success by inter-planting the bryonia and watermelon? Might they cross? I certainly have space to plant out a large population looking for hybrids.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jan 9, 2013 13:26:11 GMT -5
I'm wondering if I could expect any success by inter-planting the bryonia and watermelon? Might they cross? I certainly have space to plant out a large population looking for hybrids. I think inter-planting them could help. From my observations with my purple indian corn it seems that plants influence each other just simply by growing next to each other and releasing chemicals into the ground. I have noticed that the grass growing where i grew my indian corn now has high anthocyanin expression. I believe the indian corn has somehow influenced the activation of genes that were already available in this other grass genome through epigenetics. I also found that thread about those two plant breeders very interesting. That Michirun guy and the other one. You might also have higher success if you start experimenting with grafting. Graft one onto the other and likewise do the reciprocal grafting as well. Once both of these grafts have matured try crossing the flowers between them as they might have a slightly higher acceptance rate of the foreign pollen because in a way it's "immune system" may not recognize it as "dangerous" anymore. |
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Post by hortusbrambonii on Jan 9, 2013 14:16:34 GMT -5
Wow, I've just been reading this whole thread, and I'm completely impressed. (as someone who has never grown one watermelon, always thought it would never do anything over here, but next year I'll try some early white-fleshed japanese ones)
Did you ever think of writing a book, Joseph?
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Post by bitterroot on Feb 21, 2013 20:34:07 GMT -5
I just discovered this site a few days ago and found this thread to be fascinating. I always wanted to produce tetraploid watermelons as an experiment but never have tried it. I have worked in a couple different crop breeding programs mostly traditional breeding but also some lab work with interspecific crosses, double haploids, and mutation breeding so I am familiar with plant breeding techniques. From what I have seen, a wide cross like this would be almost impossible to get anything highly useful out of. We poured thousand of dollars into crossing brassicas of the same genus/different species to get desirable traits of both parents and decided it wasn't economically feasible. Still this sounds like a great and unique project to work on. I will be looking forward to hearing more about this project in the future.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 21, 2013 22:37:01 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum bitterroot. LOL. If my farming was motivated by economics I wouldn't be farming. I'm looking forward to posting updates. If the only thing that comes out of the project is a public-domain tetraploid watermelon then I'll consider it a success.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 3, 2013 8:46:13 GMT -5
I sprouted the seeds from the tetraploid watermelon project in pots in the greenhouse so that I could pre-screen them for tetraploid-like traits. Specifically I am screening for big leaves and large plants. I planted them fruit-to-pot. - The seedlings from 2 fruits are growing like the diploid control. Slow to germinate and small plants. These were the first two fruits harvested. 8-21 and 8-31
- The seedlings from 2 fruits germinated quickly and are growing robustly. They had a high germination rate. (Possibly tetraploids?)
- The seedlings from the other fruits are intermediate and mixed sizes. Possibly mixes of tetraploids, triploids, and diploids.
My intention with these plants and the remaining seeds is to plant those that appear to be tetraploid together in one patch, and to plant the possible triploids and diploids in another patch. It'd be interesting to see if any seedless melons show up. I won't be able to tell if they are seedless before picking, because the pollen donor did not have striped skin.  |
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Post by billw on Jun 3, 2013 12:35:23 GMT -5
This is very interesting. I am doing some experiments using oryzalin against dihaploid potato cultures to try to produce allotetraploids - it is a pretty well known procedure that I am practicing in order to try with oca (an octaploid) later this year. At high dosages, I get dead plantlets, but at low dosages I get a great deal of chimerism. Based on my reading, I think colchicine may provide more predictable results.
Have you checked to see if you have gotten any uniformly tetraploid results?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 3, 2013 13:04:31 GMT -5
I originally tried converting seedlings. Killed them all. Seeds were easier to work with.
I haven't done root-tip squash or other chromosome counting techniques to try to verify that they are tetraploid. I figure that I'll use phenotype clues and call it good enough. So far, larger seedlings, bigger leaves, and very hairy stems are what I am using for my tetraploid selection criteria. These days I'm a farmer, and don't have access to a lab full of reagents any more. I've got a microscope that may be sensitive enough to see chromosomes, but no chromosome dye that I know of.
Last year I planted all the attempted conversions into a clump, and didn't cull them after the original planting. This summer I intend to grow them as individual plants, and to cull out the plants that don't fit the phenotype that I think might indicate tetraploid.
I figure that at 2 PPM of oryzalin that it's a saturated solution, so if I attempt more conversions of seeds that's what I'll use. (For 24 hours). I still need to attempt the conversion of B. alba seed... I can't find the seeds I collected, so I might have to collect more. It grows feral around here.
I got a few chimeric looking seedlings last year. They were immediately eliminated.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 13, 2013 8:48:55 GMT -5
The watermelons from the tetraploid project were potted up into individual pots and are now hardened off and ready to be planted into the field. Here's a comparison between what I think are tetraploid and the diploid control.  I have been thinking that I should select one of my diploid watermelons and treat it the same way: Plant a bunch of seeds, and select generation after generation for the plants that germinate quickest and grow fastest. I planted a row of landrace melons very thickly, intending to treat them that way. There is still time to do it this growing season in the greenhouse with sibling groups. |
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