Watermelon Rot

marietta mike 7/23/2012, 6:57 am

Getting new problems with the watermelons.

All of a sudden my melons are rotting issues. The last 6 melons all began just fine. But within a week they all began to rot at the bud end. They go from firm to soft over night and the bud end turns black and they get soft. This is happening on new growth between 1 1/2 to 3 inches long.

Yesterday i was checking for new melons and came across one of my older melons. It is about 6 weeks old and its bud end began to rot !!

I have 8 other melons on the vine and i am afraid that i am going to loose the rest as well. Has anyone had this issue or know of anyone that had this issue. I have been spraying for bugs and fungus every 7 - 10 days. Because i lost cukes to beetles i have been looking for signs of beetles in the melons. One of my mags states that melons and cukes both can be taken by the stripped cucumber beetle.

Yea know - this is becoming another job ! LOL silly me

**walshevak** 7/23/2012, 6:21 pm

Somewhere in the depths of my not so great mind I think I remember reading about cuke beetles spreading a virus. Can anybody help? Anyway, here is a link to watermelon diseases.

http://cuke.hort.ncsu.edu/cucurbit/wmelon/wmdshndbk/gen.html

http://gcrec.ifas.ufl.edu/watermelons/diseases/diseases.htm

Kay

cheyannarach 7/23/2012, 7:14 pm

Bacterial wilt and squash mosaic virus are carried by cucumber beetles. Here is another link! Good luck.

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/cucumber-beetle08.pdf

Pollinator 7/24/2012, 12:07 am

marietta mike wrote:Getting new problems with the watermelons.

All of a sudden my melons are rotting issues. The last 6 melons all began just fine. But within a week they all began to rot at the bud end. They go from firm to soft over night and the bud end turns black and they get soft. This is happening on new growth between 1 1/2 to 3 inches long.

If the vines are otherwise healthy, I'll lay you odds that it's incomplete pollination and the fruit is aborting. Watermelons have to have about 1000 grains of pollen delivered to the stigma, and spread evenly across the three lobes to make a good melon. Less than that will make a poor quality one, or even less will cause fruit abortion. It takes many bee visits to deliver 1000 grains.

If you are growing seedless hybrids, remember that the pollen is sterile. Viable pollen must be delivered from a standard variety nearby(pollenizer), and it takes about three times the bee population to do the job. In other words, in standard variety watermelon fields, one honey bee hive per acre is recommended, and for seedless hybrids, three hives per acre are needed.

marietta mike 7/25/2012, 5:47 am

Thanks all for the info. I was also told i was watering to much. Cut back on that as well as putting the melons up on tiles.
Did some weeding to clean out around the melons to allow more sun.

marietta mike 8/1/2012, 1:56 am

Well good news.

I took the advice of all and the melon patch has begun to put out new melons.

I have cut back on watering, twice a week.
I cut back the vine growth which appears to have started new buds for the bees to pollinate.
I also placed the melons up on floor tiles to keep them dry and off the moist ground.

The vines that were left began to put out new shoots and the area got so think i almost stepped on two new melons about the size of a softball.

Again Thanks to all for the advice.. Watermelon Rot 3170584802

cheyannarach 8/1/2012, 12:51 pm

I am happy to hear your good news!

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