Golden Rind Watermelon & Northern Orange Watermelo Projects

[ferdzy]

I think I have referred to our project to breed a bigger, better "Golden Midget" watermelon here before. This year I finally think we have a fair degree of success.

The above is typical. Our largest yellow melon was just over 2.7 kilos or about 6 pounds. Much, much better than we've ever gotten with Golden Midget. Unfortunately a seed from the orange-flesh project got in with these melons this year so I am a bit nervous about contamination in next years seed. Oh well; another few years sifting it out. Damn.

The orange flesh project is us crossing Orangeglo (said to be an excellent orange fleshed melon, but far too long a season to grow successfully here - we got it ripe enough to produce seed once (only tried once)) with Sweet Siberian, a much smaller and more northern adapted orange fleshed melon, as the name would suggest. We are starting to get moderately consistent results here too. You can read more about this at the blog:

seasonalontariofood.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-4th-annual-watermelon-breeding-post.html

[raymondo]

Excellent. Must be very satisfying to see it coming together ferdzy.

[richardw]

Well done ferdzy, 2.7kgs is good size.

[ferdzy]

richardw, yes! It's as good as I was hoping might be possible. The trouble with the golden-when-ripe gene is that it affects the whole plant. The whole plant turns yellow (and dies) as the melons ripen. Therefore I was afraid that the melons would never be very big. Nobody's looking for a 40-pounder (in any melon, these days) but this is large enough to be quite satisfactory.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Good job.

I've seen pictures from China for long yellow rind watermelons, so it should be possible.

GOLDEN LADY F1 Yellow Rind

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Sept 24, 2018 8:10:18 GMT -5 ferdzy said:

I think I have referred to our project to breed a bigger, better "Golden Midget" watermelon here before. This year I finally think we have a fair degree of success.

We are starting to get moderately consistent results here too. It can read more about this at the blog:

seasonalontariofood.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-4th-annual-watermelon-breeding-post.html

Awesome blog post! Made me realize i need to still take photos of mine this year!

I had an interesting pale rind watermelon grow big out of nowhere fast recently in the top citron patch! I wonder what it is. I suspect it might be one of the edible domestic types that i mixed in. Hope to check the patch today.