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I have tried to plant watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) , and I have got small seedy fruits. I need to get fruits like that found in stores.
Here are my questions :

  1. Should I transplant the watermelon plant or plant it directly in the soil?
  2. What about the spacing mine is 30 cm between plants 60cm between rows is it good?
  3. How many times should I irrigate the plant (I am in the middle east region) or according to which soil state (dry,semi dry...) and how much water it needs (wet dirt or full wet).
  4. Does it requires balanced NPK fertilizer or what?
  5. Should I remove suckers or not?
  6. Does it requires heavy sun?

I hope you can answer my questions.

Issasafar
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    Are you planting a named variety of watermelon, or are you using seeds saved from watermelons you've purchased? If a named variety, which one? – Jurp Feb 15 '23 at 18:20
  • Citrullus lanatus , and i bought the seeds from agricultural store. – Issasafar Feb 16 '23 at 07:59
  • By "variety", I meant a named cultivar, like Summer Sweet, Yellow Doll, or Sangria. An unnamed variety will have characteristics peculiar to it's own parentage. – Jurp Feb 16 '23 at 14:19
  • Where are you located? The "watermelons in stores" may have been shipped quite a long distance. In my area, it's essentially impossible to grow a watermelon bigger than 4-6 inches / 10-15 cm or so due to the climate/growing season. The ones in stores are grown closer to the equator and shipped here. – Ecnerwal Feb 16 '23 at 16:05

2 Answers2

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I'm making an assumption here, so if I'm incorrect, please let me know and I can delete this answer. I'm assuming that you planted an unnamed variety of watermelon (by "variety", I mean a named cultivar, like Summer Sweet, Yellow Doll, or Sangria). If this is correct, then the small, seedy fruits you're getting from your vines may be due to the parentage of the seeds you planted.

While watermelons cannot cross-pollinate with other cucurbits, they can cross-pollinate with each other. There are several non-sweet/barely edible varieties of watermelon; if one of these crossed with the plant from which your seeds were produced, then your seedlings would have characteristics of both the parents. Here are some possibilities:

  • C. lanatus var. citroides (Citron Melon or Bitter Wooly Melon)
  • C. caffer. A variety called karkoer has only edible seeds
  • C. lanatus mucosospermus (also called C. mucosospermus) is cultivated only for cattle feed

There are other wild varieties that are not considered edible. As you can tell by the list, two of the three varieties are within the C. lanatus species, so seeds labelled "Citrellus lanatus" may contain them without any "false labelling". Also, there are undoubtedly C. lanatus crosses that have undesirable characteristics. Any of these could be a parent of your seeds.

I suggest that you change your seed source, if possible.

To answer your other questions:

1 and 2. Watermelons don't like to be transplanted. If you have a long growing season (100+ days), then I'd recommend just planting them in hills in the soil, about three seeds per hill (about 15cm apart), with the hills at least 3m apart (this depends on variety; some produce shorter vines than others).

  1. Irrigate the plants when the soil is dry at a depth of 8-10cm (about 3 inches).

  2. Watermelons can be heavy feeders, so compost mixed into the soil before planting is a good idea.

  3. There are no suckers.

  4. In my area of the world, watermelons require full sun.

Jurp
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A partial answer.

It is a creeper/vine, so you don't need many plants. And you can space it out further, maybe even 2m. I wouldn't try to make it climb a stake as the fruit are rather heavy and need to rest on the ground.

Full sun worked for me when I was in India, you may have a different variety. They were very vigorous and each plant will have several fruits.

As far as I know, they don't have suckers. You can nip off the ends of the shoots to limit their spread.

Rohit Gupta
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