How to Grow Seedless Watermelon? A Detailed Guide to the Planting Method

Watermelon seeds are the seeds of the watermelon, but a seedless watermelon has no seeds, so do you know how to grow seedless watermelons? Let's take a look together below.

1. Buying Seeds

Seedless watermelon is a special type of watermelon produced by crossing diploid watermelons with tetraploids created through induced mutation. You can buy the seeds directly on the market; a bag costs roughly several tens of yuan. Choose seeds that are similar in color and size and relatively plump, and soak them; after soaking, let them dry naturally. Seedless watermelon seeds also need to be manually cracked open to help them germinate. There are two ways to crack the shells; the more commonly used method at present is cracking wet seeds, that is, carrying out the cracking operation after soaking, which has a relatively high germination rate and is also easy to do.

2. Sowing

After cracking the shells, you can promote germination at a stable temperature. After 24 hours of indoor cultivation, they will generally sprout; those whose sprouts exceed one cm can be selected for sowing. Under normal circumstances, all the seeds will sprout within two days; beyond that time they are basically bad seeds and will no longer sprout.

3. Sprouting Management

The period from seed germination to emergence is a very critical one, so management must be strengthened during this period. In particular, the temperature requirements are very high at this time; generally the daytime temperature needs to be kept at around 35 degrees, and at night it must also stay above 25 degrees. If the seedlings begin to push through the soil, remove the plastic film immediately, and then appropriately provide some urea to help the seedlings grow. During the growing period, ethephon can be used to assist growth.

4. Keeping the Fruits

When the watermelon seedlings grow to a certain point, vine pruning must be carried out, removing the tendrils on the main vine so that the side vines grow better. During the growth process, the watermelon should keep one fruit-bearing vine every 2 to 3 nodes. After the selection is complete, the work of keeping the fruits should be carried out: leave 2 fruits on each side vine, and remove all the fruits that are poorly shaped, deformed, flat or small.

5. Harvesting

A watermelon will stop growing once it has grown for enough days; the detailed information is given in the instructions for each variety. Before harvesting, the watermelon can be watered once with manure water to improve its quality. The time for selling must be chosen well: too early and the watermelon has not ripened, too late and it will also affect the quality of the watermelon. After harvesting is complete, clean up the melon field and then splash farmyard manure on the ground to build up the soil for sowing the following year.

Growing seedless watermelons is similar to growing watermelons with seeds; seedless watermelons fetch a higher price and profit, so if conditions allow, you can grow seedless watermelons.