Not one to drop a subject prior to beating it to death, I decided to go ahead and test my Ambrosia seeds that were collected from the second Ambrosia cantaloupe I harvested a while back. I just couldn’t wait for this coming spring to find out if they would be good or bad. Also, I wanted a chance to order fresh Ambrosia seed if I needed to. The cost was $2.95 for 30 seeds at the time of this writing.
I began the experiment by selecting three healthy looking seeds and three small ones that did not look like they were fully developed. I then placed them on a moistened paper towel and inserted this into a plastic baggie. Note: I did not seal the baggie as I felt the moisture would remain high enough and yet air still could circulate. I wanted to avoid mildew if possible.
This assembly was done at 10:53 AM on August the 8th, 2010. The baggie was left on top of a TV in my room where I was sure to notice it from time to time.
We now fast forward just 3days and as you can see in the second picture blurred though it may be, the well developed seeds have all germinated while the immature ones have not.
These were planted out, even though it be late in the season. I’ll see how well they do! I know one thing for sure. Next season, I will pre-sprout these before planting out!
2 comments:
Dan, what a great idea about doing a test-germination to see if your seeds are viable. I have read about doing that with old seeds, but hey, why not with new seeds, too, especially if you have lots of extras (like if you're harvesting from a fresh melon). I totally understand why you planted those seedlings, even if it's too late in the season - I also have a problem with "killing" perfectly good seedlings, even if the timing is all wrong.
Are all ambrosia melons hybrids? If that's the case, then your new melons (even if there was enough time left to grow this season) will probably not resemble the parent melon? This is what I'm trying to figure out with my current melon experiment, although I'm not 100% sure that my parent melon was a hybrid.
Good point about the seed being hybrid. I'm not sure. Before next spring comes around I plan to check with Burpee seed to find out. Thanks for the comments!
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