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how far apart to avoid cross pollination?
johngreen
Posts: 58
I am planting three kinds of watermelon this year and am hoping to keep a lot of seeds for next year. I don't want to have them cross pollinate. I have a pretty big garden, but how far apart would they really need to be to avoid this?
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Posts
To be honest, John, unless you can grow some in a greenhouse you're likely to get some cross pollination as bees will forage several miles in a radius around their nests. Still, you'll get a fair few melons and a fair amount of seed. Look at it as a surprise for next year!
I agree with Jimmy, although I didn't realise bees foraged over that distance. Amazing in relation to their size.
I seed-save from chillies which are particulary promiscuous for cross pollination, especially when grown close together in the greenhouse. The surprises with random hybrids are part of the fun for me, although I know some people are more purist about it. I almost wish tomatoes were the same, but they largely self-pollinate, so you don't have as much fun, unless you're growing out F2s from F1s.
You could manually pollinate the flowers, then put some kind of bag arrangement around the flowers. People do that with chillies to avoid x-polls, and also manually pollinate things like courgettes early season when there are not many insects around. I would assume those basic principles would also apply to melons.
If you goggle 'Heritage seeds' or 'real seed' they give good advise about saving seeds.
They advise all varieties of melon will cross, ideally, you need around a quarter of a mile between different varieties, a tad bit impossible, unless your garden is huge
. It can be achieved in a poly tunnel or GH though.
Dave Goulson at the British Bumblebee Conservation Trust wondered how far they could forage under extreme circumstances so he basically drone-napped some worker bees, then released them at varying distances from the nest and marked the bees with a small coloured dot for differing distances.
Bees made it back from three or four miles, whilst this is likely way at the extreme end of the scale, they do have the ability.
You are basically in for a fun guessing game when it comes to next years crop!
Thanks Jimmy, that's fascinating, they're wonderful creatures.
I love seeing them go from courgette flower to flower. There is so much bright yellow pollen you can actually see them covered in it, and feel you are seeing the act of pollination happening right in front of your eyes.
I don't mind cross pollination that much, but I am growing two very different kinds of melons, klondike blue and sugarbaby, I would like to keep them pure. I guess I will try manual pollination.
I love the bees as well, here is a pic I took last year of a bee that I was following around the garden for quite some time.
If just one bee gets through you may end up raising rubbish plants next year. And all for want of buying reliable seed.
Good Luck with the water melons!