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Vegetable Gardening

Seedless watermelon pollination?

14 years ago

I'm trying my first seedless watermelon this year, a triploid, Farmers Wonderful, from Johnny's. Along with the triploid seeds was a packet of diploid seeds to be planted as a pollinator.

I plan to plant my regular watermelon varities like Sugar Baby, Yellow Doll, Orangeglo, New Queen, and Blacktail Mountain along with the seedless type. If I'm planting all those "regular" types, do I have to plant the diploid pollinator? Or will the others do the trick?

Thanks,

Bart

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Comments (4)

wayne_5 zone 6a Central Indiana
14 years ago
Those other pollinaters will do fine for pollinating the seedless.
fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
14 years ago
Bart:

The others will do fine. I planted Harris seeds special pollinator last year and wasn't impressed. I'd rather have my standard diploid, Star Brite, as a pollinator. Shoot, I'd rather have it period.
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seedless watermelon question
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Two possibilities, 1) An mismarked watermelon 2) A Tetraploid watermelon that, when crossed with a regular watermelon will give you a seedless watermelon. They don't usually pollinate them very easily with out some assistance. But I have gotten a few before ( that I grew). 3) Finally, sometimes a seedless watermelon will throw seeds. Jay
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Twilley's SSX-7405, a really good seedless watermelon.
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I don't have much issue starting the seedless and this year I planted outdoors in March. That's very early here, 3-4 weeks before average last frost. But with our sun and a black weed barrier overlaid with clear poly they come up in 5-7 days. Star Brite is easier to get up and outgrew anything else including 7-8 seedless cultivars. I think the key to getting seedless up other than warm soil is to get them up without watering again after planting. My system does that. I cut a small hole in the black weed barrier, plant, water well, and cover with the clear poly. Remove or slit the clear as they start to emerge.
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seedless watermelons ... how to get viable seed then??
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Comments (18)
"My understanding is if you grow a large field of seedless watermelons you will end up with three types of melons. The normal fruit of the diploid pollinator, the seedless fruit, and a small number of fruit that is different than the other two. This melon contains the seeds for next years seedless planting." Unfortunately, not true. You have to use the breeding lines to create new seeds each year. That is the same with regular hybrids, except that extra steps must be taken to set up the breeding lines.
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Seedless watermelon pollinator
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Sugar Baby is used as a pollinator for many seedless watermelons, although it is not a "universal donor". Many seed sellers include a suitable pollinator, sometimes in a separate little package inside the seedless watermelon seed packet. The pollinator needs to provide pollen at the appropriate time, so it should be the same "degree of earliness" as the triploid. MM
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calliope
14 years ago
They are just doing this for convenience, in case you weren't planning on doing any other melons. The variety you plant as a pollinator has negligible effect on how your seedless plants fare.
bart1
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks folks!

Fruitnut - I remember reading something in the Fruit forum that someone (maybe you, or maybe Jellyman?) said that seedless was just another name for tasteless! I'll let you know what they taste like in 5 months or so!

Thanks again,
Bart

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