Using sharp gardening shears, first remove any diseased, dead, yellowing, or otherwise infested leaves and shoots at the joint, where they connect to the main stem.Īt this time, also remove any secondary vines, those that are not blooming or look sickly. Whether you want to rein in the size of the vine or you’re trying for a blue ribbon melon, thinning watermelons is an easy procedure. If that is your end goal, then there’s no longer any reason to prune the vine back. Don’t thin or prune the vine just yet! Many of the young melons will shrivel and die off, leaving only the strongest melons to ripen. Pruning will also reduce the size of the vines, which can grow to over 3 feet (1 m.) in length.Īlso, cutting back the plants may cause the vine to send out additional runners, which will then delay the fruit set, as the plant is now focusing on growing vines instead of developing melons.Īs the vine begins to fruit, at first it may seem that you have a bumper crop awaiting you. With no female blooms to pollinate, there will be no fruit. Pruning promotes healthier vines and increased fruit size but if cutting the vines back too early, you may reduce the number of female blossoms. There are a few considerations before going off willy-nilly pruning a watermelon vine. This is where pruning watermelon plants comes into the picture, but removing melon fruit may have some downsides as well. The vine simply does not have enough nutrients to foster more than one fruit of that size. Watermelons can weigh as much as 200 pounds (90.5 kg.), but to get one that size, thinning watermelon fruit is a necessity. Both are needed to set fruit and there are fewer female flowers compared to male, about one female for every seven males. The vines produce both male and female flowers. Healthy watermelon vines produce 2-4 fruits per plant. If you want enormous watermelons, for example, then thinning the watermelon fruit is necessary, but the question is how to thin out watermelon plants? How many watermelons per plant should be left? Keep reading to find out all about pruning watermelons. Thinning out fruit is also a common practice and is done to engender larger, healthier fruit by reducing competition for light, water, and nutrients. This should kill the fungus and give the remaining seedlings a chance to thrive.For me, thinning out any young seedling is painful, but I know it has to be done. Be sure to read the instructions– only a certain amount of mefenoxam can be safely applied to plants each year. Apply fungicides containing mefenoxam and azoxystrobin to the soil. If your seedlings are already showing signs, remove the plants that are affected. Often this is enough to prevent damping off, but Pythium has been known to strike in warm soils as well. Don’t plant the seedlings out until they have at least one set of true leaves. Instead, start seeds in pots that can be kept warm and dry. It tends to be a real problem with watermelon seeds that are sown directly in the ground. Since the Pythium fungus thrives in the cold and the wet, it can often be prevented by keeping seedlings warm and on the dry side. They tend to strike in cool, moist environments. There are several species of Pythium that can lead to damping off in watermelon plants. These problems can be directly traced to Pythium, a family of fungi that lives in the soil. If pulled out of the ground, the plant’s roots will be discolored and stunted. The lower part of the stem becomes waterlogged and girdled near the soil line. It affects young seedlings, which wilt and often fall over. Watermelon damping off has a set of recognizable symptoms. Keep reading to learn more about what makes watermelon seedlings die and how to prevent damping off in watermelon plants. Damping off can be a particular problem with watermelons that are planted under certain conditions. The plant usually topples over and dies because of this. Specifically affecting seedlings, it causes the stem near the base of the plant to become weak and withered. Damping off is a problem that can affect many different species of plants.
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