Problems with a melon plant.?

Question

About two months ago I bought a tiny melon plant (sorry but I don't know what kind of melon plant it is). It has grown big, and it's probably about 4 feet now. The problem is that the melons only grow a tiny bit and then they turn yellow and fall off. What am I doing wrong? It seems to be doing just fine. I keep it in a green house, and I water it daily. I have cut back on the water, and it seems to do even better after that. But still the melons just fall off.

I do all of the pollinating myself with a q-tip, and it has never failed with the other plants I have. Plus there are lots of bees, so that shouldn't be a problem.
The plant has never been watered from the top. I water directly only to soil.

Answer 1

Several things can affect fruit set and poor pollination.

Too much nitrogen can delay the setting of fruit on the vine or a mid summer heat wave. Watch that you don't overfertilize or use the wrong type of fertilizer.

Are you able to control the heat in your greenhouse? High day and night time temperatures will cause plant stress. The tiny pollinated fruit may abort as a result. A heat wave can also deter bees from their job, making hand pollination more important.

Male and female flowers are to be found on the same plant. The male flowers will appear well before the female flowers and also in far greater numbers. In periods of hot weather the male flowers are more numerous. When they get a cool spell, the female population will catch up.

Male flowers are short lived. They will open up before dawn and will close completely by mid-morning.The male flowers possess both pollen and nectar, the female flowers only nectar. If the plants are watered from overhead early in the day, that may prevent all further pollination for that day. Everything gets washed off of the short-lived male flowers. Replacement flowers do not open then until the following morning.

So don't water overhead in the morning if you want to give your plants optimum opportunity to pollinate. I see you cut back on the watering & it made a difference... maybe because you had been watering overhead in the morning before?

Maybe you don't have enough insects for pollination? You can also pollinate by hand .Take the male flower and gently rub its pollen onto the stigma sections in the center of the female flower. Pollination will be more successful if several male flowers are used to pollinate one female flower.

Good luck! Hope this helps.

Answer 2

you ought to stay in California too...warm warm warm. you ought to take an exceptionally good look into your plant life to work out in the event that they have perhaps spider mites, white flies, mealy bugs. The spider mites are rather annoying to work out. look sideways on the leafs and in case you notice teeny tiny webs throughout them , you have spider mites. i found them on the tomatoes. We by no skill ever had them before and that i could not be certain why they have been getting crispy and lifeless looking. yet another difficulty is you ought to furnish some form of shade textile over them in this warmth. Or make a tent form cover. The solar while it gets too warm like now, purely fries each and every thing. additionally do not fertilize them in the warmth. you ought to %. up a small spray bottle of tomato set on the ironmongery shop. you purely spray a pump right into a flower and it will reason the fruit to set. it works on melons too, I even have used it many situations purely for that.

Answer 3

Sounds like you don't have pollinators nearby. Grab a Q-tip, and help mother nature a little by spreading the pollen among flowers.

Feed it some bone meal