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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 14, 2012 15:19:19 GMT -5
I am starting this thread to document my attempts to breed more cold tolerant and/or frost hardy melons.
Today (March 14th) I planted ~600 watermelon seeds, and ~1200 cantaloupe seeds. This is approximately 11 weeks before our last expected spring frost. I sometimes have melons that volunteer in the garden. Even if I don't find frost tolerance, I am hoping to identify seed that can sit for a long time in cold early spring soil, and germinate when it is warm enough to grow.
The watermelon consisted of: Keen101 landrace, Dianne's landrace, my landrace, Susan's landrace, (more accurately proto-landraces), and my daddy's Charleston Gray subvariety.
The cantaloupe seed came from: Joseph's Best, two volunteers from last year, the four earliest melons from last year, and a C melo hybrid swarm.
I interplanted with onions so that I can tell where the rows aught to be.
The snowcover this year melted about two days ago on March 12th.
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Post by richardw on Mar 15, 2012 3:51:01 GMT -5
I'll be watching this thread with interest Joseph,good luck.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2012 20:45:25 GMT -5
Do you mean for the foliage to tolerate frost, or for the seed to remain viable?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 9, 2012 22:15:14 GMT -5
Do you mean for the foliage to tolerate frost, or for the seed to remain viable? I can't predict those things ahead of time... My garden is at the ecological limits for watermelon, so I'm planting them too early, and into too cold of soil, and I'll let the seeds work out how they survive, if they survive at all. I'm expecting at least some of the cantaloupe to survive, since some of them are descended from volunteers. Also, last year, I planted a row of cantaloupe a few weeks before normal planting time for cantaloupe. About 7/8 of the row croaked, but some survived, and some of the survivors provided seed to this planting. I'm intending one more too early planting for cantaloupe, I've pretty much exhausted the suprplus watermelon seed for this year so I'll wait till it seems safe for that. --- switching topics to weeding --- The bugger of the early melon trial is the weeding... Perhaps a flame thrower would be appropriate, I really don't want to run a hoe through the seed-bed even though the lambsquarters has come up like crazy and I'm not expecting the melons to germinate for many weeks still. While i'm on the topic of weeding, I moved my early garden this year... I've never quite killed the grass in that area since the field was first plowed, because I have planted it as soon as the snow melts. This year that section is laying fallow until June so that I can take down the rhizome grasses without disturbing a planting. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2012 13:08:13 GMT -5
A local farmer, who grew watermelons and pumpkins together, gave me volunteers, which fruited several hundred yards away. I don't know whether crosspolination is even possible, but these small, round melons seemed to have a pumpkiny after taste, IMHO.
The seeds and seedlings would have tolerated short term snow covers of 2-3 inches, and I have saved the seed.
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Post by terracotta on Apr 10, 2012 16:10:03 GMT -5
A local farmer, who grew watermelons and pumpkins together, gave me volunteers, which fruited several hundred yards away. I don't know whether crosspolination is even possible, but these small, round melons seemed to have a pumpkiny after taste, IMHO. The seeds and seedlings would have tolerated short term snow covers of 2-3 inches, and I have saved the seed. pumpkins and watermelon are two different taxonomic tribes and crossing is unlikely. watermelon doesn't like to cross with anything but other Citrullus. what watermelon cultivars did you start with? The only one I know can survive snow is citron melon. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2012 22:28:23 GMT -5
The mysterious melons in the orchard have the same shape as citron melons, which I see online, but the flesh is red.
We're not sure where they came from, but they grew to be several pounds, without the benefit of irrigation.
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Post by cortona on Apr 14, 2012 5:14:25 GMT -5
no irrigation? that 's greath, i've tryed some watermelons but they ever need irrigation not to give me fruit but just to survive...we have a really hot and usually dry summer here.... probably your climate are different....if you have hot dry summer and it produce fruit aniway....that is something greath!
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Post by terracotta on Apr 14, 2012 21:31:58 GMT -5
The mysterious melons in the orchard have the same shape as citron melons, which I see online, but the flesh is red. We're not sure where they came from, but they grew to be several pounds, without the benefit of irrigation. red is recessive to both white and yellow so my thoughts are that one parent was cream of Saskatchewan and a red variety. this results in the core being red but the outer portion yellow. was yours patchy or spotty? it would indicate a co-dominance as well. |
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Post by raymondo on Apr 15, 2012 22:54:16 GMT -5
Cortona, have you looked at any of Jean Pain's writings? He grew in the south of France and claimed that he never irrigated. He grew vegetables under a shade structure during summer (woven twigs it looked like) and regularly added compost (from his water heating system) to his soil. The south of France has very dry summers so it may be worth looking at. Much of his stuff has been translated into English though you'd probably find a lot more in French.
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Post by canadamike on Apr 16, 2012 1:10:34 GMT -5
Kokopelli, in France, have a strain of melons called VOATANGO (which simply means ''melon'' in the local Madagascar language) that is said to be heat and drought tolerant. One thing is sure, it gave me melons and even flowered after a frost in 2010. Frost tolerance, Joseph???  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 31, 2012 23:24:55 GMT -5
My watermelon seeds started sprouting this week.
Seed survived in the soil from plantings made on:
March 14th, a few days after the winter snow-cover melted, 11 weeks before last frost.
May 8th, 3 weeks before last frost.
May 17th, 12 days before last frost.
The plantings are all at the pre-true-leaf stage. [They started growing when it was warm enough to grow. No advantage is evident from the earlier plantings.]
Of the 4 landraces, and miscellaneous seed that I planted, the prize for best early emergence goes to the Keen101 landrace: 15% of the seeds have already germinated. The other landraces are around 2% sprouted.
No cantaloupe seedlings are visible from the March 14th planting. Bad weed problems in those rows... I ran the wheel hoe through the super early muskmelon and watermelon plantings a week ago, so I could have weeded out any cantaloupe that had sprouted. Sure got the timing right on the watermelons!!!! A planting of muskmelons made on April 30th, 4 weeks before last frost is at the first true leaf stage.
Soil temp at 5" deep an hour before sunset today was 80F.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 16, 2012 1:00:10 GMT -5
In the last couple weeks since the direct-seeded watermelon started germinating, we have had frost on about six mornings... Some plants died. The most vigorously growing plants did not appear harmed at all by the frost, only tiny slow growing plants died. Guess I aughta flag those plants that survived the frost the best and that are growing the most vigorously.
The presumably tetraploid watermelon plants received a lot of damage. It's looking like they will recover fine. The controls suffered some damage but not as bad. [They are growing separated from each other so that might be environmental and not genetic.]
It's been a good year for developing frost-tolerance. We don't usually get so much cold so late in the season, and the cold has been perfect: Enough to kill the most susceptible plants while sparing the most cold tolerant.
The cantaloupe, moschatas, crookneck squash, banana squash, and mixta squash did fine. Cucumbers suffered mightily. Peppers are doing fine. Between the frost and/or the flea beetles, the potato seedlings have had a hard time. About 10% of the tomatoes died from cold.
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Post by DarJones on Jun 16, 2012 1:08:55 GMT -5
Some tomatoes have genes that allow them to survive temps down to the low 20's. Remind me sometime to send you seed of my Tastiheart. I grew them out from seedlings that survived 22 degrees in 2007.
DarJones
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 16, 2012 15:05:26 GMT -5
Dar, where did you find 22 degrees?
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