We are going to start our 2021 diary with a little experimentation. We haven’t grown watermelon for a number of years and have decided that we would like to try a couple of plants this year. After doing some research online we have decided we would like to learn to graft watermelon. Some of the benefits of watermelon grafting would be disease resistance and plant vigor. This will be totally new for us and we do not really know how it will turn out. We may have to grow traditionally if we can’t master the grafting process. Apparently, one of the most important things to have after grafting is to have some sort of healing chamber for the newly grafted plants to go into. This healing chamber needs to be kept at and a very high relative humidity at first and then slowly reduced over the course of a week. The grafts need to be in the dark for the first two days and then slowly introduced to light a little longer each day.
The picture below shows our newly built healing chamber (24” X 28” inside dimensions) with the control box on the right.
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The control box contains a SHT2000 temperature and humidity controller. It is wired in such a way so that one half of the outlet supplies power to the humidifier and the other half delivers power to the heater. It is very easy to make changes to the settings to either raise or lower the heat/ humidity inside the box. The red display is the temperature and the blue is the humidity.
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We started some seeds January 15 just for practice. We decide to use bushel gourd as the rootstock mainly because it was available to us. Unfortunately, we had very poor germination of the bushel gourds and we were only able to get 3 seedlings started from that batch. Today, we decided to try the first practice grafts. There are a number of different grafting techniques, but we decided for this first try to go with the one cotyledon graft.
This is one of the bushel gourd seedlings. They were not the healthiest looking plants but it’s all we had.
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Here is the same plant after the true leaves as well as one of the cotyledons were cut off on an angle down the stem.
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Next, is the watermelon scion that was cut on the same angle to hopefully match the cut on the bushel gourd.
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Next a grafting clip was put on the stem
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The seedlings were put inside the healing chamber and covered to keep light out. The humidifier is just a small bottle cap humidifier that fits inside a water bottle. The heater is a germination mat under the wire rack. The black probe on the top right is connected to the SHT 2000 controller. It measures both the temperature and the humidity.
Today we were privileged to witness history being made. Canada’s first pumpkin over 2000 lbs was officially weighed at the Woodbridge Fair. Congratulations to Jim and Kelsey Bryson for growing a 2006.5 lb pumpkin.
Here they are getting it off the pallet.
On to the scale
New Canadian record 2006.5 lbs.
Jim said it measured around 1850 lbs., so it went very heavy. It was grown from the 2014.6 Patton.
Our pumpkin surprised us by going heavier than it measured. Here they are getting it ready to lift with the Judge Chris Lyons close by.
The official weight was 1726.5 lbs. That was about 250 lbs. heavier than the measurement, so we were very happy with that. This is the second year now that the 2118 Barron has gone heavy for us. Would like to try this seed again next year.
Our watermelon even went heavy for us. It was measuring 135 lbs on the tape but weighed 160.5 lbs. It was good for first place, but it was the only watermelon entry.
Thank you to the Woodbridge Fair committee and volunteers for putting on the weigh-off.
We decided we would take our 2200 (est) Geddes to the Port Elgin weigh-off. Loading day last Friday turned out to be a very harrowing experience. The picture below shows our first lift out of the patch. As you can see the bottom rope is too high up on the pumpkin. I didn’t realize it at the time and continued to lift the pumpkin off the ground. A few seconds later the pumpkin slips out of the sling and falls to the ground. This caused the rope to rip off the stem. As well, two hairline cracks formed at the stem and blossom end. We probed the cracks and couldn’t get the probe to go very far into the pumpkin, but we didn’t know at that time what the bottom looked like. At this point we lost all confidence in our lifting device and did not want to attempt another lift.
I called Doug Court to see if I could borrow his pumpkin lifter. On one of Doug’s busiest days of the year, he stopped what he was doing, jumped in his car and drove the lifter down to us. I told him we could have gone to pick it up. Doug says “I had to come it was a pumpkin emergency”. Thank you so much Doug, you are a true friend. With Doug’s help we examined the bottom (it was good) and got it on a pallet. It was up to the judge now to determine if it was sound or not.
Weigh-off day…The pumpkin made it to the scale. The judge determined that it was good to be weighed. The weight was 1747.5 lbs. and placed forth.
Congratulations to Jim and Kelsey Bryson for their 1st place 1775.5 lb pumpkin.
This year’s weigh-off was a little bit more like normal. At least the growers were able to stay on site for the entire day if they wanted to.
It was good to talk with a lot of the growers that we missed last year. Below is Fred Hain and Dorothy in the background. Fred was showing us his nice orange pumpkin that he grew from our 1699 seed from last year. It weighed 1299.5 lbs !!!!
Congratulations to the Pumpkinfest committee and all the volunteers for putting this all together for us. It must have been very challenging at times.
Woodbridge is next.. Everyone... keep your ropes low.
Good luck!
Looks like we will be getting another batch of storms that are quickly coming across the lake. We are under a tornado watch. As a precaution we covered the pumpkins with blankets and had to lash them down with ropes to keep them in place. There is a risk that our shelters may be damaged in the windstorm and we wanted a bit of protection from the flailing structures.
Stay safe everyone!
The pumpkins are now heading into the home stretch. The storm last Tuesday caused a bit of damage to the plants from the hail and wind, but it could have been a lot worse. We now have a lot of holes in the leaves but overall the plants have recovered and the pumpkins are still growing.
We have been giving a lot of tours of our pumpkin patch again this year. Friends, neighbours and total strangers. Growing close to the road draws a lot of attention and you would think that could be a bad thing, but we have never had any problems over the years. Giving a tour and answering questions to someone who has never seen a big pumpkin before has to be my favorite part of this hobby. I’m not sure what it is about giant pumpkins that make people smile but it definitely does.
The 2118 Barron continues to grow at a decent pace. It averaged 17 lbs. per day this past week.
It is now sitting at 1384 lbs. It’s a wheel shape that is leaning.
The 2200 Geddes has slowed to 8 lb. gains per day this past week. It measures 423” OTT or 1630 lbs. That is now the largest OTT measurement we have ever had in out patch. The long range forecast looks good for day/night temperatures. We are hoping it will put on a few more lbs.
We had a storm go through last night, fortunately the plants made it through undamaged. This past week was another very hot week. This week it looks like we will be returning to seasonal temperatures. We have a bit of powdery mildew starting that we are trying to stop. We still have a few aphids left, but they don’t seem to be spreading very fast.
Today was measuring day. The 2118 Barron is slowing down. It grew an estimated 168 lbs. in the last 7 days. Now estimating 1114 lbs.
The 2200 Geddes grew almost the same. It put on 166lbs in 7 days. Now estimating 1459 lbs. 405” OTT.
The heat is on and it looks like this stretch of brutally hot humid weather will continue well into this week. We have increased the amount of water given to the plants. Each pumpkin plant is now getting well over 100 gallons a day. We lost our biggest tomato this week on the 6.68 Court. It split open on the bottom and started to rot. Lost a couple of others to BER.
We were scouting through the plants this week and discovered we have an aphid infestation starting. So far it is just on the outer edge of both plants (east side). Aphids have a number of natural enemies, but as pumpkin growers we mess that up by spraying for the cucumber beetle and squash vine borer. We have been spraying an insecticide regularly and that has also killed off the beneficial insects that eat aphids. Chemical control is never 100% effective, so any surviving aphids repopulate the plants within a matter of days.
Below is a picture of the back side of one of our infested pumpkin leaves. The aphids are the greenish/yellow dots. Some are bigger than the others because they are at various stages of their life younger/older. The little white flecks you see are the exoskeleton (dead skin) of the aphids. They molt about 4 times in their life cycle and leave the white telltale signs behind. The brownish ones in the lower left corner are the dead ones that must have died the last time we sprayed. They move very little because they have their needle like mouth part stuck into the leaf sucking out the sap. We are not sure of the species but it looks very similar to the aphids that were on our soybeans this year. Possibly the green peach aphid.
This next picture is another view of a different part of the leaf. You can see the same greenish dots (aphids) as well as the white exoskeleton and the brown dead ones. But this picture also shows a beneficial insect. You see those worm like things that are slightly orange. That is a aphid midge. They feed on aphids so that is a good insect to have. There are a number of beneficial insects that feed on aphids like lady beetles, earwigs, small spiders, lacewing etc.
The next 2 pictures were taken looking through a 25X handheld lens. The pictures are a little out of focus.
But you can see the big ones and the little ones as well as the dead skin cast- offs. We might try an insecticidal soap spray on them.
The 2200 Geddes is starting to slow down. The OTT today was 387” for an estimated weight of 1293 lbs. That is a gain of 192 lbs. in the last 7 days.
The 2118 Barron measures 346 OTT for an estimated weight of 946 lbs. That is a gain of 226 lbs. in the last 7 days.
This past week has really been a roller-coaster ride of temperatures. Sweltering hot for the first part of the week, and then turning to fall like conditions yesterday. We covered the fruit with thick blankets for the first time this year trying to keep some of the heat in the pumpkins overnight. It got down to 9°C last night.
Our 2200 Geddes is in the foreground. It has really been a great plant to grow. No issues so far with anything. The leaves are short but we think that is an environmental variation as opposed to a genetic variation. The plant adapted to its environment. A plant with tall leaves wouldn’t survive very long in our area because it is so windy. We are surrounded by commercial windmills. You can see them on the horizon.
We took the time today to measure both plants because they sort of out grew our original space allotment. We were surprised to find that the Geddes measured out to a little over 1200 square feet and the Barron was just under 1100 square feet. The Geddes is 39 feet wide across the back of the plant.
The 2200 Geddes is now measuring 365” OTT about 1100 lbs. It gained 222 lbs. in the last 7 days.
The 2118 Barron grew 235 lbs. in the last 7 days and is measuring 720 lbs. It is 8 days younger, but it will need a nice September for it to catch up to the Geddes.
Next is a look at our two overwintered cabbage plants. They put out a lot of flower/seed stalks. We had to tie the stalks up because they wanted to flop over.
We think our bees did a good job pollinating the flowers because there are lots of pods forming. Hopefully, we get some seed from them.
Since our last entry the south 255 Mitchell watermelon plant has completely shut down. In a desperate attempt to save the north 255 Mitchell we have been treating the stump. We drenched the stump area with 3% hydrogen peroxide several times and followed up with sulfur powder. The foaming and fluid leak has stopped. At least for now. Some sections of this plant has died, but the remaining vines actually look healthy. The growth has slowed but at least it is still growing.
It measures 92lbs today
The 2118 Barron started out very slow but around day 27 it finally started to increase the daily gains.
It’s at day 36 today and measures 276” OTT.
The 2200 Geddes has been growing very well for us. It measures 337” OTT today. This one is actually ahead of last year’s measurements on the same calendar day.
This is our low tech method of applying our fertilizer. We put whatever we want for one plant into the pail. The fertilizer venturi injector will suck it out of the pail as the water is pumped through the system. We can direct to different areas of the patch with the valves on the left.
Our 6.68 Court tomato is still ok. It measures 16 ½” circumference and has been growing at a steady pace of ½” per day for the last 6 days.
Sorry to hear you lost your melons. Hope you have big ones next year to make up for it!
Sometimes this hobby can be very humbling. Just when you think you have something going on the right track the wheels fall off. Well, the wheels fell off our watermelon wagon. Everything seemed to be going well. The plants grew very fast at the start of the season. The fruit was pollinated early and growing at a very steady pace until growth suddenly slowed near the end of July. We checked the stump of both plants and found that they were foaming and leaking fluid. It was a failure of the grafts. Looking back, we should have protected the stump area with some type of cover. That might have helped to keep them dry. All the rain we had in July we feel was a big contributing factor to the failure. We learned a lot this year. Hopefully, we will try them again next year. We believe it is worth taking the risk to grow grafted plants, to get the increased vigor. We just need to figure out how to get the grafts to make it all the way through the season.
The south 255 Mitchell was the worst. It has eroded about halfway through the stump.
The north 255 is not far behind. It was leaking foam and juice from the dark area.
Both plants have vines that look like the picture below. They are losing their connection to the roots and shriveling up.
Final measurements: South plant has a fruit just over 100 lbs. and the north plant has one at 80 lbs.
We had a storm roll through here last Saturday evening with violent winds and heavy rain (2”). We just finished cleaning up all the downed branches from our trees. Fortunately, we didn’t have much damage to the plants. The wind blew down a lot of the plastic fencing we had surrounding the plants because the rain softened the soil and the stakes became easy to push over.
This is a look at our 2 pumpkin plants. We have shelters over both fruit now.
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The 2118 Barron is 23 days old today and it is not growing at a very fast pace. It’s only at 162” OTT and growing about 18Lb per day the last 2 days. It has a very nice shape and colour but it needs to start growing soon.
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Our 2200 Geddes started out fairly slow for us but at day 25 it started to finally grow at a decent pace. It is at day 31 today and has put on 216lbs in the last 6 days. The OTT today was 262”.
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The watermelon continue to grow at a very steady pace. The North 255 on the left is estimating 66 lbs.’ and the South 255 is at 91lbs.
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We have been watching a flower on one of our tomato plants. The picture below was taken 5 days ago when the flower was 5 days old. It was a very weird looking thing. It looks like 4 stems have fused together into a sort of ribbon looking vine. It looks like there are 4 tomatoes fused together although 2 are smaller than the others.
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This next picture was taken today
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Another view of the same tomato. It will be interesting to see if this one amounts to anything.
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The weather for July so far has been a challenge for us. Lots of rain with high winds, overcast days and cooler temperatures have kept the growth rates of the fruit down.
The watermelon plants have been growing well. The picture below is the north 255 Mitchell and is our largest plant. It has far exceeded the 300 square feet we allocated for it. The pine straw works well to keep the weeds down. Hopefully, we can keep the plant healthy.
The melon on this plant has been averaging 2 ½ lbs. per day for the last few days and is now estimated to be 46lbs. (Day 25)
Next is a look at our south 255 Mitchell.
The melon on this plants is estimated to be 71lbs and has been averaging a little over 2 lbs. per day.
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Our 2200 Geddes has a pumpkin that is at day 22. It started out fairly slow but has now started to pick up the pace.
It has a decent shape and a very long stem.
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This is the 14 day old fruit on the 2118 Barron. This is the replacement for the previous one that was growing so slow. So far the growth on this one isn’t much better. It’s at 21’ on the main so it has lots of plant behind it. Hopefully it will pick up soon.
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Introducing the newest Mitchell melon (north 255). This melon is at day 15 and has a 33”circumference.
We have it on the hammock and shaded.
We picked this one because it is growing on a finger vine that goes right back to the stump. We also have a larger and older melon growing on one of the secondary vines. Marvin told us that it was better to get one going on a finger vine if possible. Now we still have to cut off the larger melon.
This is a close up of the north 255’s stump. It has four finger vines as well as the main vine. We put fine gravel around the base at planting time to prevent the soil from splashing up onto the graft area and causing issues. The melon we selected to keep is growing on the vine with the red arrow.
The south 255 Mitchell is growing well. We started to take OTT measurements a few days ago. It has been averaging 3 lbs. per day. Estimated to be 46 lbs. today.
Below is a look at our two pumpkin plants. The 2118 Barron is on the far left and the 2200 Geddes is on the right. We have never had plants this large the first of July. The main vine on the Barron is out to 24’ and the Geddes is 26’.
The 2118 Barron has a fruit that is 10 days old today @14'. The disappointing part is the pumpkin is barely growing. The 10 day circumference was only 15”. That has to be our worst ever. Maybe we are growing too much salad and not enough fruit.
The flower below looks like it will bloom on the 2118 tomorrow. It is at the 21’ mark. If we can get it to set we might have to go with it.
We were finally able to get back into the patch after last weekend’s rain. We got a little over 3” total. So far this year we haven’t seen any cucumber beetles, but this morning they hit us hard so we had to spray for them today. The high winds have really tattered the leaves on the pumpkins over the last few days.
The south 255 Mitchell watermelon is now on its new hammock with the shade structure above. We removed all the other melons from this plant. This one is growing on a finger vine that leads directly back to the stump of the plant. The vine was terminated right after the melon.
Today we were able to pollinate a flower on the 2200 (est) Geddes just before the much needed rain started. Its at 16' on the main.
We have a watermelon on the south 255 Mitchell, that looks like it will be our keeper. It has a good shape and seems to be growing fast. Now we need to get it off the ground and covered with a structure for shade and water protection. The Giant Watermelon Growers have a good site with lots of information and pictures. Most of the serious watermelon growers on there get there fruit off the ground right away using either a wire/plastic rack or a hammock and make a shade cover. We have chosen to make hammocks for our fruit mainly because we had the materials at hand. The hammock frame was made 2 feet X 4 feet and we had this trampoline tarp material that someone was going to throw out. The material was wrapped around the frame and screwed up from the bottom.
Of course it had to be product tested after assembly.
Now we have to work on a shade structure. First we glued up some hoops, made from white cedar.
Assembled the unit and trying to pick the ideal height. Tarping will be installed next.
It has really cooled down here lately. It got down to 8 °C last night. We had a flower to pollinate on the 2118 Barron (below) this morning. The main vine is now out to 16’ and the flower is at 14’. Hopefully, this will be the keeper on this plant.
The 2200 Geddes has been the leader in our patch so far and the main is now out 19’ and we have a pollinated flower at 11’ that we don’t plan to keep. We should have a flower bloom in a couple days at the 16 foot mark. We hope to keep that one to give us more plant behind the pumpkin.
We are still pollinating the watermelons and haven’t picked the keepers yet.
This was a promising contender until a critter decided to start chewing on it.
This one also has a decent shape and growing fast but it also has some scratch marks on the stem end that looks like it was made by the same animal.
The plants are continuing to grow well. We are well ahead of last year. Below is a look at the 2200 (est) Geddes. The main vine is out 14 feet and we have a female at the 11 foot mark that will bloom in the next couple of days.
2200 Geddes female
Next is the 2118 Barron. The main vine is out to 12 feet and has a pumpkin that will likely bloom tomorrow at a little over 9 feet. Will likely wait for a female father out. The problem is the next female is deformed, but we do have another at the very tip.
2118 Barron female that will be a good week from blooming
The watermelons are still growing well. Below is the south 255 Mitchell
Next is the north 255 Mitchell
We started to pollinate flowers on watermelons. The two pictures below were pollinated 2 days ago. We will pollinate as many as we can and then watch for one that stands out from the rest before we cull the others.
We removed all the plastic enclosures covering the pumpkin and watermelon plants two days ago. We like to surround the plants with a plastic wind break because we are very exposed to the wind in our area. Also, we gave the pumpkins a little shade on the south side of each plant.
Below is the 2200 Geddes. Its main vine is now 8' and we have started to bury the secondary vines on each plant.
Next is the 2118 Baron. About a 6 1/2’ long main vine.
The watermelon plants are really liking the open air with full sun. We straighten out the vines and they are growing well in all directions. We have been removing the females up until now. Would like the plants to get a little larger before we pollinate one.
This is our end of May update. The temperature has been very cool here lately, especially the nights. Looks like it will be warming up this week. We are happy with the growth of the pumpkins. The 2118 Barron is about 3 ½ ‘ long and looks healthy.
The 2200 Geddes has been growing the fastest. It’s at 4 ½’ and also looks healthy. Secondary's are starting.
The watermelon plants have surprised us the most. We never thought they would outgrow the enclosures before the pumpkins. The main vine of the one below is now 7’ long, but we had to turn the vine in order to keep it inside the hoophouse. It is in the shape of a horseshoe right now. We need to remove the hoophouse very soon and straighten out the vine.
This next watermelon is the same size, but has a larger hoophouse. The vine is almost out the door as well. We are using pine needles as mulch.
Haha. Couldn't believe it when I saw it. Thought it was a piece of plastic in the yard. Can't grow any giant veg but I'm pretty good with weeds!
I'll give you a run on the mega bloom Bob. Check this out. At least 10 flowers and maybe 12
The pumpkins are off to a slow start. The first week after planting they didn’t grow much at all but they did stay healthy looking. Now that the weather is warming up the plants are finally growing. The Geddes plant below is starting to put out a vine.
The watermelons on the other hand are growing like crazy. They are outpacing the pumpkins. The 255 Mitchell below will soon be out the door of the enclosure.
The 255 below is growing well. It is in a larger enclosure so it should be alright for a while yet.
We were preparing the tomato sites this week and came across our first mega blossom of the season. At the edge of the garden we found this dandelion that had 3 heads fused together.
Planting day today. The 2118 Barron did so well for us last year, we just had to try this one again. This will be the earliest start for us.
This next pumpkin is a 2200 (est) Geddes. Thank you Steve for the seed.
The watermelon are next. We have two 255 Mitchells in the ground. The grafts grew very fast and are actually starting to put out a vine. This one has a vine growing straight up.
This next watermelon has a shorter vine growing out the back, but it is down low were it should be.
Today we worked on the watermelon sites. We have allotted each melon a space of 15’ X 20’. The soil heating cables were previously put in and we constructed the hoop structures with the materials we had on hand. The one in the foreground is 7’ X 8’ and the one behind it is smaller 5 ½’ X 5 ½‘using wooden hoops.
Plastic installed and used spring clamps on the door flaps.
The recent watermelon grafts are now out of the healing chamber. The four plants below are the only ones we have left from the original nine plants. We lost the other five plants because of various reasons. Some rejected the scion, others had splits in the stems. The ones that are left seem to be doing very well. They are eight days from grafting and have already grown 3 -4 leaves since then. They only had one partial true leaf just eight days ago.
This is a look at a good graft union close up. We watched a video made by Tony Prochaska on the Giant Watermelon Growers site. He recommended using the gel from an Aloe Vera plant to seal up the graft union. It seems to work.
This is a look at a bad graft. For whatever reason this one didn’t work.
The picture below is the only remaining practice graft that we have from the winter. This one was grafted on March 11. We just have it sitting in a window to see what it would do. It has climbed up the stick and it now measures 36" long. All we have been giving it is a little water.
Yesterday was grafting day for the watermelons that we hope to plant this year. This time we started the BG a week before the watermelon. We think this will be a better size for grafting, using the hole insertion method. When we did our last test grafts we thought the watermelons were too large. The 9 bushel gourd seedlings on the right are 18 days old. The 9 watermelon on the left are 11 days old. The 255 Mitchell seeds are all perfect looking seedlings. Most of the Mudd seeds we started have a deformed look to them.
Next is a look at the plants after grafting. They are in the healing chamber now.
Stay safe everyone!
With the weather being so nice over the past week, we spent a lot of time in the patch. We were able to get our 2 pumpkin sites prepped, heating cables installed and cloches built 10’ X 10’. We picked an area for the 2 watermelon plants we want to grow. We installed a heating cable for each melon plant. The watermelon cloches will be built later.
Last fall we dug out 2 of our remaining cabbage plants, heads and all. Replanted them in large buckets and stored them in the barn for the winter. We took them out of storage, removed the outer dead leaves and planted them in the patch. Took a knife and scored an X into the top of the head. We have never tried this before, but we are hoping the cabbage will go to seed for us. Thanks to John Butler and Art Johnston for the tips they gave us last fall.
The weather this week has been very beautiful. Yesterday we couldn’t resist the opportunity to get more of the coco coir. We now have approximately 34 yards at the patch. Today we spread some of this material on part of our patch. We used our old manure spreader. It has seen better days, but it was a lot easier than using a wheelbarrow and fork. We applied 8 spreader loads on the section of the patch we will be using this year.
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After we finished it looked like a Martian landscape. The little anthill looking piles were made because the floor of the old spreader needs replaced. It has a few holes in it and the material dropped out through the holes.
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Worked it all in with a disc. If the weather holds out we plan to prepare the planting sites next. Looking at the long range forecast it looks like things will be returning to more seasonal temperatures.
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Next is a look at our best practice watermelon graft. Its starting to put out a vine about 10” long.
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Wow
We have a fairly large cannabis growing operator a few miles away from us. Our next door neighbour has the contract to remove the cubes of growing medium after the plants have been harvested. They grow hydroponically in coco coir. The owner stopped in this past week to ask us if we would be interested in trying some in our patch this year. The picture below shows what the cubes look like right from the greenhouse. They remove multiple loads per week.
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It’s a little too wet right now to go into the patch but we have started to stockpile some for use later. The picture below shows what the material is like after decomposing for a few years. The pile is huge.
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This afternoon we got a little over 16 yards of this material. We can get more later if we want.
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This is very rich looking stuff and should make a good soil amendment.
This is an update on the watermelon test graphs. We only had two plants survive from the hole insertion grafts. It seems to take about two weeks before the plants recover from the shock. The plants below are 16 days old, since grafting day. They are finally starting to grow now. We will have to factor this extra stress time in when starting the actual watermelon for our patch.
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This is a close up of the graft union.
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Today, we ran the disk over the patch. It was ploughed last fall. It has been so nice here lately with no rain. We thought it would be a good chance to at least level out the patch a little. The ground is very dry.
This is very unusual for us this early in the season.
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It has been 4 days since we completed the grafts. Below is a look at the plants. We had mixed results. We understand now why they say that the hole insertion technique is the hardest to master. Everything has to be perfect in order to get a good union.
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Here is a closer look at some of the poorer unions. This first picture is the one that we made the hole too large and the scion was inserted too far. Not sure how this one is still growing, but it is somehow.
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This next one sort of split out of the bushel gourd stem, but it is still growing as well.
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And finally this one totally rejected the scion.
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So we have 3 poor ones and 3 good ones. Below is an example of what we think is a good one. It looks like it has good contact with the BG and has a gel like substance covering the joint.
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Today we completed our second batch of practice grafts. We have our seedlings pictured below. Six watermelon on the left and eight bushel gourd on the right. This time we are going to be trying the hole insertion technique. All the seedlings are a little more than two weeks old.
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First we remove all the true leaves of the bushel gourd.
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Two cotyledons are left.
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Next, a shaped wooden stick is carefully inserted at an angle down between the cots far enough that it comes out the side of the stem slightly.
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The watermelon is cut off from its roots. The stem is cut at a steep angle, rotated 90 ° and then cut again forming a sharp point.
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The watermelon scion is then inserted into the hole, with the cut edge down, far enough that the point should be showing a little out the side of the stem. The picture below shows that the point on this first one, is showing through too far. The hole was made too large. Not sure if this one will make it.
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This next picture shows one that worked out a little better. The point is just showing slightly.
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Below, is a look at all the finished grafts before they were placed into the healing chamber. We have the six on the left that are watermelon grafted to bushel gourd rootstock. The one on the right are the two bushel gourds we had left. We grafted them together just because we had extra plants. They all go in the dark for two days, in 95 % humidity. The watermelons may have been slightly too large for this method. Should have started them a week later maybe.
We have the healing chamber set up into a growing chamber right now with glass top and light. All the grafts are still growing well and we have some new plants just starting for more practice grafting.
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This is a look inside of the box with new plants in various stages. First grafts are in the back right
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All the grafts that we did a little over two weeks ago look good. This is a closer look at one of them.
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It’s been a week since we grafted the watermelon on to the bushel gourd rootstock. The plants are looking a little rough, but they are still alive. We kept them in the dark for two days at 95% relative humidity. After that we introduced light into the healing chamber and we believe we might have injured the plants by using a light that was too intense. We also reduced the humidity inside the box a little each day.
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Here is a closer look at the plants. The watermelon cotyledons on this first plant have completely died off. It looks like the true leaves are still growing.
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The next plant shows the same die back of the watermelon cotyledons. This plant also has regrowth of the bushel gourd that shouldn’t be there. We need to make sure that the growing tip of the bushel gourd is completely removed next time. We will cut away the new growth of the BG as well as the dead cotyledons and continue to grow these plants to see how they do.
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This last plant seems like our best one. The cotyledons are a little yellow and you can see a little bit of BG regrowth just above the grafting clip that needs to be trimmed off. Overall we are happy with the results, so far. At least we are learning. We have started another batch of seeds and will try another set of practice grafts in a few weeks. We may attempt the hole insertion graft next.
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