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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 29, 2016 16:31:07 GMT -5
I don't remember... I've been growing these as a novelty, so I haven't paid attention to taste. Last season, for example, I forgot to harvest the seed until the fruits were well rotted. Oops... I suppose that it would be nice to spend more time on this project... If I had worked on them seriously every year since 2011 when they first appeared, I'd have a great variety by now... I lost a field for muskmelon growing last season, because the deer in that area discovered how to eat muskmelons, but I still have a spare field in which I could grow these in isolation.
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Post by gilbert on Mar 29, 2016 18:21:40 GMT -5
Are you still looking for collaborators? I could grow you out some. And I have a largish plot of land and wouldn't mind just growing this one for faster selection. Denver is milder then your climate, but still fairly rigorous, radiant cooled nights, lack of water, short season, intense solar radiation. But I've never got a ripe melon or watermelon yet, even with varieties like "Blacktail Mountain." Does that make me a good or bad collaborator? I'm not sure if it is the weather or if my melon growing skill just suck. Some others in the area also say it is well nigh impossible to get a melon here, but I've heard from at least one person who managed it once.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 29, 2016 21:59:19 GMT -5
gilbert: Yup. I'm always looking for collaborators. Too bad I haven't paid more attention to this project over the years. I'll send you a PM. I am surprised that people think that Blacktail mountain is a great watermelon for short-seasons and cold-nights. In my garden, it's one of the least vigorously growing watermelons. I did harvest a ripe fruit the first time I grew it, and the taste was marvelous, perhaps the highest brix melon that I have ever grown, but it sure got off to a slow start.
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Post by gilbert on Mar 30, 2016 13:35:30 GMT -5
Yes, that seems to be the case with the Blacktail Mountain. I wonder if it has degenerated over time. Then again, I got it from the originator, Glen Drowns, so one would think he if anyone could maintain it. Rather a puzzle, since it was the only melon that would produce for him in the mountains of Idaho, with short, cool summers.
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Post by gilbert on May 29, 2016 8:19:12 GMT -5
I planted Joseph's bush melon seeds today, about 30 of them. I didn't do anything special to the bed. Soil is still cool and the temperatures are still dipping into the upper 30's at night. I plant to weed out non bush plants.
The soil is prime farmland if irrigated, and I fertilized it with a soybean meal, gypsum, rock phosphate, and kelp meal concoction which all my beds got.
On the other hand, I'm planting cucumbers and squash in under cutoff bottles, etc.
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Post by gilbert on Jun 30, 2016 7:52:21 GMT -5
Joseph's melons are up, but a rabbit ate some. I thought I had built a rabbit proof fence, but the critters squeezed through. So I'm left with half a dozen healthy looking plants. Do you suppose I can breed a landrace that is resistant to rabbits by selection? More spines?
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Post by nicollas on Jul 2, 2016 10:57:16 GMT -5
A bush cantaloupe is wonderfull ! As any of your seeds reached Europe yet ? Not read yet but this should be of interest Fine genetic mapping of a locus controlling short internode length in melon (Cucumis melo L.) link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11032-014-0088-1It is a single récessive gène in their case
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Post by reed on Jul 22, 2016 8:14:08 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse and anyone else growing bush type melons. Any updates on this project? My patch this year is looking great with lots of phenotypes but the vines are so giant and foliage so thick it's hard to find the melons. I'm thinking I need to push mine to a more bushy habit as I don' have the space to devote to the large vine types. Would love to see some pictures and assessments of flavors and the like.
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Post by diane on Jul 22, 2016 12:30:55 GMT -5
I have read that flavour is better in vining squash (and, presumably, melons as well) probably because extra leaves make more sugars for the fruits. However, if the internodes are short, there could be similar numbers of leaves, so flavour should be good.
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Post by steve1 on Jul 22, 2016 16:44:19 GMT -5
diane - from my understanding photosynthetic assimilate is directly related to fruit/grain production. Though I'm away from my computer and can't give the reference. That supports the more leaves gives sweeter fruit theory. Dwarf vines probably (maybe?) produce less per plant but if the ratio of leaf area to fruit are the same then sweetness should be equal. Whether the short internode habit causes more leaf shading thereby reducing photosynthetic assimilate in comparison to vining types is another thing. There must be a paper on this, surely!
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Post by steev on Jul 22, 2016 19:17:22 GMT -5
Worst case: one might need to thin fruit-set.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 23, 2016 0:34:41 GMT -5
Here's what the bush cantaloupes looked like this evening. I suppose that the long-vined plants came from a bush-muskmelon that grew last summer in the general muskmelon patch. I should chop them out to prevent them from shedding pollen into the rest of the patch... On the other hand, I really really love my hybrids! My intention is to leave the long-vined plants alone, and to replant them next summer, with the intent next summer of only allowing "bush" plants to flower and set seed. I'm still intending to share seed from these this fall, but with the understanding that there was some "long-internode" pollen floating around the garden. If I wanted to get even more clever, I could pluck male flowers from the long-internode plants.
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Post by templeton on Jul 23, 2016 3:18:52 GMT -5
Can't wait for spring. Raymondo shared some bush muskmelon seed with me, hoping to get it into a breeding line. T
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Post by gilbert on Jul 23, 2016 21:35:37 GMT -5
Rabbit damage means I'm going to have to let everything go, bush or not (I only have three bush plants left by now) so that I don't get a bottleneck, and because I'm eagerly awaiting melons, (one is now the size of a softball) and it would be too bad to chop out three quarters of the remaining plants. I've got backup seed in any case. I will save the bush and vine plants separately but they will have crossed. There are no other cantaloupe genetics around my gardens. I will have tons of seed next year if all goes well, so I can plant hundreds of plants and rigorously chop all vines. If it is a recessive gene, any bush plant should be pure for it, so all will be well.
One thing I've noticed is that the bush melons have lighter green leaves and seem overall less vigorous, with fruiting behind that of the vines. Coincidence? Or not?
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Post by gilbert on Nov 25, 2016 20:18:43 GMT -5
I saved a lot of seeds, but mostly from non bush plants. The bush plants were overall less productive and much less vigorous. But the melons from all were delicious. I got 20 or so. It is quite a feat to have grown any melons at all in Denver; thanks Joseph!
Next year I will try again to start stabilizing the bush trait. Hopefully the vigor of the other plants will rub off on them; unless the genes are somehow linked to the short internodes?
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