Cantaloupes 2011

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

haha, Joseph if those cantaloupe seeds were money you'd be rich by now!!

Then again, based on your enthusiasm maybe you are!!!!

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I found a neat paper today linked by the agro.biodiver.se biodiversity blog. I didn't know where to post it, so i put it here due to Josephs apparent success with adapting new varieties to his garden. I find the article very fascinating. I personally think some sort of epiginetics can actually pick (or skew the 50/50 chance) which alleles to pass on to offspring based on growing conditions. The same could be true in humans as well, but who knows.

After two cycles of cultivation and on-farm mass selection, all the observed varieties showed significant phenotypic changes between the original version and the version cultivated by farmers for morphological and phenological traits. The phenotypic changes shown by the population varieties in response to on-farm cultivation and selection could be useful for the development of specific adaptation. These results call into question the current European seed legislation and the requirements of phenotypic stability for conservation varieties.

www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/9/1616/

[raymondo]

Good find. Very interesting article.

[ottawagardener]

Yeah, money certainly doesn't grow on trees or in cantaloupe fruit as far as I know. So far, your landraces Joseph have worked quite well in my garden so I'll be contacting you once I have my own seeds sorted out. It's been quite the summer/fall so I'm a bit behind in my usual enthusiastic gardening.

We have different climates for sure - we get a good amount of rain - but it's still a shortish season here. Anyhow looking forward to seeing how some of your cantaloupes do!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Cantaloupe harvest for October 5th was 4 bushels. This late in the season I have to attribute part of the success of the cantaloupe crop to the unusually late freeze.