Colorado red-seeded Citron x Watermelon Hybrids

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

With nearing frost I called it the end of the season and harvested all [citron x watermelon] hybrids. The citron rind pattern is pretty apparent this year. I may try cutting into the yellowest rind to see if it has domestic flesh, but ideally I'd like to breed for that trait on the surface to be more yellow when more ripe with a domestic sweet flesh.

What throws a wrench into all this is the delayed ripening genes from the citron melons. It may take several weeks or months for them to be at peak ripening even though a domestic would be ripe now.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

opensourceplantbreeding.org/forum/index.php?topic=18.msg3795;topicseen#msg3795

I opened up the last citron like fruits I grew this summer around Christmas / New Years. I think if trying to breed for winter storage melons this is the best way to breed / evaluate them for storage traits.

All three were white fleshed I believe. Two had relatively high amounts of hard flesh with pectin, though not as much as a pure citron melon. The one with the smallest seeds (domestic watermelon small seed size) was fairly soft. It also measured the highest amount of brix sugar content at 2%. The others measured less. One of them had an unusual seed coat color / pattern. Redish-pink seeds with the black mottled covering on top.

Photos linked from the OSSI Forum:

[philagardener]

Those are looking good! How was the taste test?

[flowerbug]

Oct 4, 2019 20:56:45 GMT -5 keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) said:

With nearing frost I called it the end of the season and harvested all [citron x watermelon] hybrids. The citron rind pattern is pretty apparent this year. I may try cutting into the yellowest rind to see if it has domestic flesh, but ideally I'd like to breed for that trait on the surface to be more yellow when more ripe with a domestic sweet flesh.

What throws a wrench into all this is the delayed ripening genes from the citron melons. It may take several weeks or months for them to be at peak ripening even though a domestic would be ripe now.

those are beautiful fruits! i sure hope something works out from them.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Jan 19, 2020 11:37:19 GMT -5 philagardener said:

Those are looking good! How was the taste test?

The taste test on these was actually bland with only one having any hint of sweetness.

But I'm confident better tasting genetics are still in the overall population. It just needs me and others to grow out enough generations to find the good recombinant offspring and save seed from them.

[philagardener]

Maybe a back-cross to watermelon might help. "All" you need is 40 acres to screen for good things!

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Jan 20, 2020 7:12:59 GMT -5 philagardener said:

Maybe a back-cross to watermelon might help. "All" you need is 40 acres to screen for good things!

Haha, well I guess I better send you some seed then for your 40 acres