How do you grow seedless watermelon?

Answer 1

Watermelon is a tender, warm-season vegetable. Watermelons can be grown in all parts of the country, but the warmer temperatures and longer growing season of southern areas especially favor this vegetable. Gardeners in northern areas should choose early varieties and use transplants. Mulching with black plastic film also promotes earliness by warming the soil beneath the plastic. Floating row covers moderate temperatures around the young plants, providing some frost protection in unseasonable cold spells.
Seedless watermelons are self-sterile hybrids that develop normal-looking fruits but no fully developed seeds. The seeds for growing them are produced by crossing a normal diploid watermelon with one that has been changed genetically into the tetraploid state. The seeds from this cross produce plants that, when pollinated by normal plants, produce seedless melons.

In seedless watermelons (genetic triploids), rudimentary seed structures form but remain small, soft, white, tasteless and undeveloped tiny seedcoats that are eaten virtually undetected along with the flesh of the melon. Seed production for these seedless types is an extremely labor intensive process that makes the seeds relatively expensive. Because germination of these types is often less vigorous than normal types, it is recommended that they be started in peat pots or other transplantable containers, where the germinating conditions can be closely controlled Once transplanted, cultivation is similar to that for regular watermelons.

For pollination necessary to set fruit, normal seed types must be interplanted with seedless melons. The pollinator should be distinct from the seedless cultivar in color, shape or type so that the seedless and seeded melons in the patch can be separated at harvest. Because seedless types do not put energy into seed production, the flesh is often sweeter than normal types and the vines are noticeably more vigorous as the season progresses.

Answer 2

Growing Seedless Watermelons

If seedless watermelons have no seed, how do you grow them? This article by three UGA horticulturists answers the question.

Growing Seedless Watermelons
by Darbie M. Granberry, W. Terry Kelley and George E. Boyhan

The seedcoats are edible and are generally not found to be objectionable. An occasional hard 'true seed' is found routinely in seedless melons. For that reason, many growers and seed companies refer to seedless melons as triploid melons. Normal seeded melons are diploid.

Although production of seedless watermelons (more correctly called triploid melons) is similar to production of seeded (diploid) melons, some differences exist:

* Triploid watermelon seed has more difficulty germinating and becoming established in the field.
* A pollenizer variety must be planted in the field with the triploid melons.
* A row of the pollenizer variety should be alternated with every two rows of triploid melons.

Field Seeding Not Recommended

Germination of triploid watermelon seed is inhibited at temperatures below 80ºF. In addition, seedcoats of triploid watermelons are thicker than seedcoats of normal watermelon seed. These thicker seedcoats tend to adhere to the cotyledons during emergence and damage plants or delay emergence. Because of the strict temperature requirements and the emergence problems associated with the thickened seedcoats, getting a satisfactory stand of triploid melons by direct seeding in the field is difficult. Because triploid seed is expensive (20 to 30 cents each), overseeding and thinning is not an option. To establish a seedless crop, transplant container-grown plants.

Pollenizer Variety

Growth-promoting hormones produced by the developing seed enhance fruit enlargement in seeded watermelons. Because triploid melons do not contain developing seed, they require pollen to stimulate fruit growth. This creates a problem because triploid plants are essentially sterile and produce little, if any, pollen. The solution is to interplant rows of seeded pollenizer melons with rows of triploid watermelons. Keep in mind that melons from the pollenizer variety must be easily separated from the triploid melons at harvest. Make sure the seeded melons are also acceptable to your buyers because about one-third of all the melons produced will be from the seeded pollenizer. It is especially important to ensure that sufficient numbers of bees are available for pollination. One strong hive (30, 000 to 50,000 bees) will usually pollinate 1 to 2 acres.

Frequency of Pollenizer Rows

Plant a row of the pollenizer variety on the outside bed. Follow the pollenizer row with two rows of the triploid variety and then put another row of pollenizer. This pattern should be repeated across the field.

Answer 3

They are usually propagated from cuttings. Watermelons with fewer seeds are bred together. After a few generations, when the seeds are very small, they take a cutting and grow more watermelon plants from it.

Answer 4

You plant seedless watermelon seeds.

Seriously. This site explains it (it's a bit confusing, but it gives a very detailed explanation of how it works).

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/CV/CV00600.pdf

Answer 5

usually you let them continue to grow there are little tiny seeds inside when you buy them you just bought them young, when seeding a watermelon you let it rot off the vine then clean it out for seeds