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Post by DarJones on Jun 16, 2012 15:55:56 GMT -5
I found 22 degrees on April 7th 2007 when a cold front swept down from the arctic and froze everything in its path. I had tomato seedlings sitting outside under a cedar tree. All of them were killed except 7 of the Tastiheart. I grew the out 3 of the Tastiheart plants and have saved the seed since.
Not sure about your climate Holly, but we routinely get down to 20 degrees here, about 1 year in 3 we get down to 10 degrees, and 1 year in 20 we go down to 0 degrees F.
DarJones
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Post by terracotta on Jun 20, 2012 16:25:08 GMT -5
found in my fridge trials orangeglo and blacktail the best, crimson sweet is second. temps at 34 degrees F.
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Post by terracotta on Jun 20, 2012 16:33:21 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. I had a crimson sweet survive outdoors for a week allsweet died in 3 days. temps outside were in the 40's F sometimes conversions I found are more vulnerable to stresses since it was a high stress event and haven't gotten things in order yet or have two cells types fighting for dominance. diploids due to faster division times overwhelm and attempt to overtake the portions that have been converted causing stress. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 3, 2012 0:42:04 GMT -5
The last spring frost for the season occurred on the summer solstice...I am now ready to award some prizes in my project for selecting for better frost tolerance in watermelons. This spring I planted watermelons from: The Keen101 proto-landrace, Dianne's proto-landrace, my proto-landrace, Susan's proto-landrace, my daddy's Charleston Gray subvariety, and assorted off-the-shelf varieties from the internet. I planted around 1000 seeds. About 50 plants survived the frost, the bugs, the farmer, etc and are growing well. First prize for precociousness goes to a plant from my proto-landrace. It has set two fruits that are already softball sized, and one smaller fruit. Second prize goes to it's sister (same mother, I think different father). It has set several fruits that are somewhat smaller. Third prize goes to a different mother from my proto-landrace. It is also setting fruit. None of the other plants in the garden has set fruit yet, and most of them are not yet blooming. I am also awarding a reliability prize to the sibling group that took first and second in the precociousness sweepstakes. I am awarding the prize for reliability because survival rate was very high. I planted fruit-to-row so it was immediately obvious which family group is thriving in my garden. Local adaptability seems to be critical to landrace development. After only one year of selection to my growing conditions, my proto-landrace is both more precocious and more reliable (in my garden) than the other proto-landraces or off-the-shelf seeds that I imported. The genetics of as many as 300 varieties of watermelon may have been included in my project to start with. By now my melons are a hybrid swarm so every seed is potentially a unique individual. That's a lot of opportunities to scramble the DNA to find something that works well in my garden. The winning family group are descendants of my first melon from last year:  The third pace winner is a descendant of a different fruit harvested the next day. 
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Post by raymondo on Aug 3, 2012 3:52:59 GMT -5
Nice one Joseph. Your work is inspiring.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Aug 3, 2012 5:43:55 GMT -5
Yes very inspiring. Like the updates.
I have about four plants with grape sized watermelons in my patch this year
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 3, 2012 23:33:57 GMT -5
Here is what my most precocious diploid melons looked like tonight.  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 18, 2012 17:06:10 GMT -5
There is another grower at the farmer's market that lives about 4 miles from me. He is in a slightly warmer microclimate, and he brought watermelons to market today!!! I snatched some up for the seed. They are tiny little things. Weight is about 2 pounds. They were red fleshed, and picked slightly unripe: I am proud of him. It's his first year growing for the farmer's market, and that's a good job!!!  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 26, 2012 13:17:03 GMT -5
A farmer who's fields are about 5 miles from mine brought a photo to market yesterday. FIRST FROST!!! I felt very cold picking berries for market Saturday morning before sunrise, but no frost for me. Not even dew. While I was in the garden Friday night, changing irrigation water by the light of the moon, I noticed something striking about my watermelons... - The 3 foreign proto-landraces, that I imported into my garden this year, stood out brightly under the moonlight. They had very gray leaves that really called attention to themselves in the moonlight.
- My daddy's version of Charleston Gray that he has grown for decades in our village was a black shadow against the soil.
- My proto-landrace that has undergone one year of adaptive selection to my garden had a slight silver glow about the leaves, but much less than the foreign landraces.
Closer observation in sunlight, showed that the trait is consistent in both daylight and moonlight... Among the 4 proto-landraces that I am growing, the only plants that have set fruits so far are the green leaved plants from my proto-landrace, which have set many fruits about 3 to 5 pounds. The silver leaved plants haven't set any fruits larger than a ping-pong ball. Not all of the green leaved plants have set fruit, but many of them have. I am calling them green leaved and silver leaved, even though the green leaved plants from the proto-landrace still have some silver in the leaves. So I'm wondering if "Green leaved" would be an easy early screening technique for plants that grow better in my garden? I wonder what it is about that phenotype that makes the plants better adapted to my garden? Also while looking closely, I noticed that there was one diploid plant that has leaves that are larger than the tetraploid plants. It is precocious. I'll definitely be wanting to convert that plant to a tetraploid!!!! Precocious, and leafs 40% larger than the largest leafs currently in my watermelon patch might be a winning combination. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 27, 2012 12:36:53 GMT -5
Here's photos of the green vs silver leaved watermelon plants.   |
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Post by raymondo on Aug 27, 2012 18:31:15 GMT -5
Is the silvery sheen due to fine hairs reflecting the light?
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Post by terracotta on Aug 28, 2012 13:46:42 GMT -5
If this is true and your previous post about tetraploids having more hairs could mean that they are less adapted. Reflective hairs are typically very prominent in regions with intense sunlight to protect the leaves so reduction is very odd.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 28, 2012 23:31:42 GMT -5
If this is true and your previous post about tetraploids having more hairs could mean that they are less adapted. Reflective hairs are typically very prominent in regions with intense sunlight to protect the leaves so reduction is very odd. My garden is at the very edge of the biological limits of watermelon due to being too cold and or not having a long enough growing season. I figure that the genome will eject any adaption for hot weather that it needs to in order to grow better in my garden. I get a tremendous amount of UV light and brilliant sunlight, and while high temperatures around 90 seem extreme to my viking genes, they are only moderate or even chilly compared to what watermelon is most adapted for. I took a photo today of two leafs side by side. The silver colored leaf is from an imported proto-landrace growing for the first time in my garden. It is typical of melons that have not grown in my garden before. The greener leaf is from the variety of Charleston Gray that my father has grown in our village for decades.  On closer examination... On the top surface: The green leaf has a moderate number of leaf hairs that are about 3 mm long. The silver leaf has a huge number of leaf bumps densely packed, but they are only about 0.2 mm long, more like bristles than hairs. The hairs/bumps are white, but they are not primarily responsible for the appearance of the leaf. On the bottom surface: The silver leaf is like scales. The green leaf is much smoother. The longest hairs on the silver leaf are about 0.5 mm long on the ribs. The corresponding hairs on the green leaf are around 3-4 mm long. The silver color can be rubbed off with light pressure, but it doesn't blow off. The alleged tetraploid Charleston Gray are even more hairy... What tremendous luck!!! To convert the one cultivar that is the most unlike anything else that is available? An experiment for next year would be to grow some commercial Charleston Gray and see if it has hairy leaves... How about it. Anyone growing Charleston Gray? What do the leafs look like? |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 28, 2012 23:59:29 GMT -5
Here's a photo to show off how closely the proto-landrace plants are growing to each other. That aughta generate lots of crossing.  |
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Post by terracotta on Aug 29, 2012 16:25:23 GMT -5
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