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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 12, 2011 1:03:04 GMT -5
A bush cantaloupe showed up in my garden this year. It came out of Joseph's Best landrace or Joseph's Earliest landrace. It's parents from last year did not share the trait of very short internodes, and I didn't knowingly include any bush cantaloupes in the ancestry of my landrace.
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Post by raymondo on Aug 12, 2011 6:39:27 GMT -5
A mutation, perhaps?
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Post by mnjrutherford on Aug 12, 2011 7:46:40 GMT -5
"Bush" cantaloupe? As in bushy growth habit?
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Post by grunt on Aug 12, 2011 10:45:52 GMT -5
I think you have a winner there!
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Aug 12, 2011 14:19:46 GMT -5
Interesting! It very well could be a recessive trait, or perhaps even some sort of inactive genes have become reactivated because of selection pressures. I have heard that sometimes plants reactive very old genes when the environmental conditions require the traits of those ancient genes.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 13, 2011 0:52:14 GMT -5
-- Edited to correct an error: Don't know why I was blind last night. -- Today I searched among approximately 400 plants of "Joseph's Best Muskmelon" looking for other plants with the bushy growth habit and found one other plant. It also shares the mottled coloration of the fruit (A sibling perhaps?). Landrace crops are fun! There's no telling what clever recessive traits, or genetic rearrangements are going to occur. My most diverse landrace of muskmelons looked like this last year:
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Post by raymondo on Aug 13, 2011 3:29:12 GMT -5
Any intention of selfing it to see if you can encourage the bush habit in the next generation?
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Post by mnjrutherford on Aug 13, 2011 12:08:52 GMT -5
That bush habit would be huge for smaller gardens. Love that photo. That is an amazing variety!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 13, 2011 13:12:35 GMT -5
I am so close to my first frost, that I wouldn't expect pollinations that took place now to produce mature seeds. I'm planning on planting the offspring in an isolation garden next summer and weeding out any that don't conform to the bushy growth habit.
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Post by raymondo on Aug 13, 2011 16:08:30 GMT -5
If it's a recessive gene and no selfing occurred you won't see any with the bush habit next season but you should the season after.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 13, 2011 16:24:36 GMT -5
It's growing on the end of a row, and germination was very sparse, so the closest plant of the same species is 12 feet away, and the 2nd closest plant is like 60 feet away, so the percentage of selfing should be fairly high (as long as there isn't a self-incompatible mechanism).
The second plant of this type is growing in a dense planting of muskmelons, so it's much less likely to be selfed.
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Post by raymondo on Aug 13, 2011 22:19:10 GMT -5
It will be interesting to see the offspring.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Aug 14, 2011 14:28:40 GMT -5
I concur! It will be very interesting!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 6, 2011 23:12:03 GMT -5
First of season harvest of cantaloupes. One other large fruit was harvested by a collaborator. This is two weeks later than last year. Our cumulative GDD has been delayed this season compared to previous years. One of the fruits came from a bush cantaloupe. The large fruit is a volunteer. So far I have found 3 bush cantaloupes. Here's what one of the bush cantaloupes looked like today:
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 10, 2012 10:56:32 GMT -5
For those of you growing the bush cantaloupe as collaborators, and returning a portion of seeds (if any) at the end of the growing season: Here is what a non-bush cantaloupe looks like: If you get some long-vined and some short-vined, please weed out the long-vined plants. It should be obvious before they start flowering. Bush Cantaloupe:
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