where do seedless watermelons come from?

[jdub61]

...do they come from seeds?

i was eating one of those "seedless" watermelons yesterday, and i had to wonder to myself as i was eating it... how do they grow seedless watermelons? where do they come from? don't they have to come from seeds too? where's birdgirl, i'm sure her genius knows the answer to this conundrum that i pose :pimp:

i posted this inside skink's latest munchies topic yesterday but i think it's so vital that it deserves its own thread dedicated in honor of it :hippy:

[slipknotpsycho]

i'm not sure but i think they're just young watermelons that haven't begun to produce seeds yet.

[wicked]

haha now thats one good question!

[johneg]

Hybrid seedless (triploid) watermelons have been grown for over 40 years in the United States. However, it was not until recently that improved varieties, aggressive marketing, and increased consumer demand created a rapidly expanding market for seedless watermelons. The seedless condition is actually sterility resulting from a cross between two plants of incompatible chromosome complements. The normal chromosome number in most living organisms is referred to as 2N. Seedless watermelons are produced on highly sterile triploid (3N) plants which result from crossing a normal diploid (2N) plant with a tetraploid (4N). The tetraploid is used as the female or seed parent and the diploid is the male or pollen parent ( Figure 1 ). As shown by the schematic drawing within figure 1, several steps are necessary in triploid watermelon seed production: a diploid (2N) female parent plant is treated with colchicine to produce the solid-colored female tetraploid (4N) parent; this is corssed with a striped male parent (2N) which results in triploid (seedless) watermelon seed(3N). To produce a crop of seedless watermelons, the triploid seed is interplanted with a pollenizer variety (2N). Since the tetraploid seed parent produces only 5 to 10% as many seeds as a normal diploid plant, seed cost is 10 to 100 times more than that of standard, open-pollinated varieties and 5 to 10 times that of hybrid diploid watermelon varieties. Tetraploid lines are usually developed by treating diploid plants with a chemical called colchicine.

Figure 2.
Tetraploid parental lines normally have a light, medium, or dark-green rind without stripes. By contrast, the diploid pollen parent almost always has a fruit with a striped rind. The resulting hybrid triploid seedless melon will inherit a striped pattern ( Plate 2 ). Growers may occasionally find a non-striped fruit in fields of striped seedless watermelons. These are the result of accidental self pollinations of the tetraploid seed parent during triploid seed production. Tetraploid fruit are of high quality but will have seeds and must not be sold as seedless. The amount of tetraploid contamination is dependent upon methods and care employed in triploid seed production.

Plate 2.
Sterile triploid plants normally do not produce viable seed. However, small, white rudimentary seeds or seedcoats, which are eaten along with the fruit as in cucumber, develop within the fruit. The number and size of these rudimentary seeds vary with variety. An occasional dark, hard, viable seed is found in triploid melons. Seedless watermelons can be grown successfully in areas where conventional seeded varieties are produced. However, they require some very unique cultural practices for successful production.

[johneg]

dont you know anything??

[stinkyattic]

I am fairly certain that you can also treat the plant with a hormone that prevents seeds forming.

The flower MUST be pollinated to set fruit at all, but the fruit simply is a vessel for the seeds to develop within... if you can prevent the development of the seeds without preventing the development of the FRUIT, you're in business.

That 'Reverse' product from Dutch Masters I think can be used on curcubits to give seedless fruit.

Johneg, would you mind citing a reference for that information?

[Skink]

I have yet to see a seedless watermelon without seeds...

[johneg]

University of fForida

Growing Seedless Watermelon 1
Donald N. Maynard2

And Stinkyattic....I do apologise!!

[D.Boone]

science

[stinkyattic]

University of fForida
Growing Seedless Watermelon 1
Donald N. Maynard2

That's cool, do you have a link? I asked because I wanted to go look around at the other information... we often have arguments in Cultivation over the polyploid condition, lol... :D

National Garden Wholesale - Dutch Master Reverse (http://www.nationalgardenwholesale.com/detail.php?id=04_NS&prod=1472)

This is the stuff I was thinking of.

[Weedhound]

Stinky I just read up on Reverse and yes, it is what they use to make "seedless" varieties of fruit.

[Weedhound]

Why is that if a food word shows up in a thread Skink is on it quicker than white on rice? :D

[slipknotpsycho]

i think he started smoking again recently thus he has an obsession with food again...

[johneg]

Google.. seedless watermelons...the second result titled Growing seedless watermelons! not sure how to do a link??

[Weedhound]

Right click on the url you want....hit copy......go to where you want to put your link....right click.....hit paste......voila...

[Weedhound]

Where Do Seedless Watermelons Come From? (http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/newsletters/hortupdate/may00/h5may00.html)

[johneg]

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/CV/CV00600.pdf
That was easy!!

[Skink]

Why is that if a food word shows up in a thread Skink is on it quicker than white on rice? :D

Did someone mention rice???

[Skink]

i think he started smoking again recently thus he has an obsession with food again...

Yes,,, pot allows me to taste food better...

[LIP]

Yes,,, pot allows me to taste food better...

Food is good!

[Skink]

Food is good!

Food is life...

[slipknotpsycho]

goddamnit now ima have to go get watermelon... damn you people...

[stinkyattic]

Oooh it's another colchichine technique- that shit is NASTY- there has been a lot of work done with treating cannabis seeds with it, or with the bulbs of autumn crocus, its source, to force polyploidy in cannabis plants... germination rates drop through the FLOOR and you get weird mutations, but anecdotally, polyploid plants have outstanding resin production.
Thanks johneg!

[scream]

clones only baby...oh wait, the science mumbo jumbo up there might be right

[Skink]

Genetics Of The Triploid Seedless Watermelon

Modern varieties of the watermelon are derived from the native African vine Citrullus lanatus (syn. C. vulgaris). Cultivated for thousands of years in the Nile Valley, this species still grows wild in the arid interior where it supplies native people with water during drought seasons. According to R.W. Robinson and D.S. Decker-Walters (1997), wild populations of C. lanatus var. citroides, which are common in central Africa, probably gave rise to domesticated watermelons (var. lanatus). Wild, ancestral watermelons (var. citroides) have a spherical, striped fruit, and white, slightly bitter or bland flesh. The pale flesh tastes like the rind of a typical watermelon. They are commonly known as the citron or citron melon, not to be confused with the "citron" Citrus medica of the Citrus Family (Rutaceae). The citron is also called "preserving melon" because the fruit rind is used in preserves, jellies and to make pickles or conserves. Because of its high pectin content, it is added to fruit juices to make them jell more rapidly. One plant may produce up to 100 fruits, which are commonly fed to livestock. Citron melons become weedy vines in cultivated melon fields of North America, and are unmistakable among other cucurbits because of their pinnatifid (pinnately dissected) leaves. The citron is naturalized in the Cape Region of Baja California, along with the curious teasel gourd.


See Citron Growing Wild Along RR Tracks In San Diego County



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Modern triploid watermelons (with three haploid sets of chromosomes) are unable to produce viable gametes during meiosis, and much to the delight of growers, their ripened melons are seedless. [Note: The word "set" is defined here as one haploid set of chromosomes.] They are produced by crossing a tetraploid (4n) seed parent bearing 2n eggs with a diploid (2n) pollen parent bearing haploid (n) sperm. Tetraploid plants are produced by treating the terminal buds of diploid plants with colchicine, causing the chromosome number of the meristematic cells inside to double. The haploid (n) sperm from a pollen grain from the male flower of the 2n parent fertilizes the diploid (2n) egg inside the ovule of a female flower on the 4n parent. The resulting 3n zygote develops into a 3n embryo inside a seed. Planting this seed will yield a 3n watermelon plant bearing 3n seedless watermelons. The following illustration shows this cross resulting in a triploid watermelon plant:




The triploid seed will germinate and grow into a triploid plant bearing triploid male and female flowers, but the flowers will not produce viable sperm-bearing pollen or eggs because of the odd number of chromosome sets (3). With three sets of chromosomes, one set will not have a matching (homologous) set to pair up with during synapsis of prophase 1 of meiosis. This synaptic failure results in gametes that are not viable, therefore double fertilization inside the ovule does not occur and an embryo-bearing seed is not typically formed. When you buy seedless watermelon seeds, you get two kinds of seeds, one for the fertile diploid plant and one for the sterile triploid. The triploid seeds are larger, and both types of seeds are planted in the same vicinity. Male flowers of the diploid plant provide the pollen which pollinates (but does not fertilize) the sterile triploid plant. The act of pollination induces fruit development without fertilization, thus the triploid watermelons are seedless.

[Nightcrewman]

ASDA


Cheers

NCM

[stinkyattic]

watermelon isn't a plant that you can make seedless through cloning... it's monoecious, meaning each flower has both male and female parts. the only reason cannabis can be sensemilla is that the pollen is made on a seperate PLANT than the ovaries, so you can simply eliminate males.

[RaoulDuke45]

bananas also used to have seeds, but sceinctists can do crazy things, but it has been said that soon we wont have any bananas, they will become exctict

[Darth Vapor]

I suspect seedless watermelons come from the place Viagra did. :rasta:

[palerider7777]

i have yet to see a seedless watermelon either every (seedless)one iv'e split open still has the lil white seeds in it so still not seedless to me and the lil white seeds are harder to get out as well and the taste is nowhere as good as a seeded one

[Greenport]

I KNOW OMFG i was thinkin this the other day

[whitewolfofsc]

Hell! while we are at it then, where does seedless pot come from? LOL!

WW

[LIP]

Hell! while we are at it then, where does seedless pot come from? LOL!

WW

It's the unpollinated female false seed pods.

All bud SHOULD be seedless, but because people obviously have no idea how to grow [or the grow is too big to pick out the males] you get seeds.

I think seeded bud is alot more common in America than England.

[psteve]

It's the unpollinated female false seed pods.

All bud SHOULD be seedless, but because people obviously have no idea how to grow [or the grow is too big to pick out the males] you get seeds.

I think seeded bud is alot more common in America than England.Yes.
That's partly because of the wild hemp that still grows across America. We call it 'ditch weed'. It's pollen goes far and wide, deflowering our girls along the way.