It's Melon Season!

 Posted by: Deryn Davidson, Boulder County

As the grocery stores begin to fill their produce aisles with bins of melons in all shapes and sizes, there has been much discussion in our office about the "right" way to choose the perfect melon. It seems everyone has their own technique and they vary widely. Carol O'Meara recently wrote a delightful piece about just that for some of our local newspapers. I'm telling you, the topic is HOT!!

Well, last week my husband and I decided we were going to take a little road trip to the "Sweet Melon Capital" (of the U.S.? The world? We're not sure, but it's their claim!) and drove to Rocky Ford, home of the famous Rocky Ford cantaloupes and watermelons. Nestled smack dab in the very open and expansive south eastern plains of the state, you see fields of melons growing as you begin to approach the tiny town of roughly 4,000. Melon fields are an unusual site coming from the Front Range where we are used to seeing corn, sugar beats, wheat and development.

We decided to pull in to the first farm stand we came across and it was impressive! As soon as we opened the car doors we could smell the almost sickly sweet aroma of all those melons. We were practically giddy with melon anticipation.

We walked through the bins of freshly picked produce (most had been picked that day) and tried to narrow down what to get. Not an easy task! However, once we did figure out what we wanted, then came the even more difficult task of finding just the right ones.

I decided to call in the experts. I spotted a woman who clearly looked like an employee and might know a thing or two about finding ripe fruit. I felt slightly sheepish about bothering her, it looked like she'd had a long day of melon slinging, but asked her if she wouldn't mind given me a quick tutorial. To my delight she gave us an extremely thorough and rather chipper tour of all the melons and what to look for. When I complimented her knowledge she said, "Well, I've been doing this for 50 of my 55 years on this planet, it's what I know!!"

Here is what she told us:
Cantaloupe

• First, you don't thump or push the ends of cantaloupe.
• A ripe, ready to eat cantaloupe will have a nice white netting or webbing with golden yellow beneath. 
• If it is greenish below the netting it may still be ripe (if other criteria are met) but will have a longer shelf life. 
• "Full slip" indicates that the melon was fully sugared when picked and is recognized by there being no stem left on the fruit. The stem "slips" off the fruit when ready. If there is a piece of stem still attached, the melon has not fully sugared and never will. 
• If you shake the melon and you hear the seeds, this means the melon is too ripe.

White netting, golden below (ready to eat now)

White netting, green below (it will be ready in a few days)

Left didn't reach full slip stage (it was a mistake to pick), the right did

Rocky Sweet and Dove Melon (hybrid cantaloupe/honeydew)

• On the bloom end of the melon (opposite the stem side) give a light push with your thumbs. It should go in slightly and spring back. If it goes in a lot, too ripe.  
• These are both hybrid melons and have a very high sugar content. Because of this they don't store particularly well so eat 'em if you got 'em!

Honeydew

• She said you can do the blossom end push test on these too, but her preferred method is feeling the rind/skin. It should feel waxy. There was a bin of honeydews that had be picked that day and they were not waxy. After bringing one home and waiting for 3-4 days, it started to feel waxy!! 

And finally, watermelons

• These are the melons you want to thump. That can be with an open hand or give a light knock with your knuckles. As Carol explains in her article...there is no need to abuse the melons, a light thump will do. 
• Should sound hollow. 
• If it sounds dead or thuddy, too ripe. (clearly this is pretty subjective, but I figure with practice and a few good/bad melons we can all get the hang of it.)
• You can also look for red or brown ooze coming out of the ends or anywhere, really. This is sugar so it means your melon will be super sweet.
• If there is still stem on a watermelon, that is fine it just means it was recently picked. They eventually dry up and fall off. 

"Thump a Friendly Melon at Knapp's Farm Market"

Reddish brown ooze signals high sugar and ripeness

More ooze coming from stem end

So, with all of our new found knowledge we loaded up the car with melons and were on our way. It was such a great experience getting to learn from someone so close to the actual process. As we left the farm stand, tractors were driving through with bin after bin of freshly picked melons. On the drive back home we saw pick-up trucks cruising down the highway with those same bins loaded on trailers taking them across the state to expectant customers eager to dig into the famous Rocky Ford melons. 

THE END

Learn How to Graft Apple Trees

Posted by: Curtis Utley, Jefferson County Extension

One of the most fantastic horticultural tools discovered by man has to be the art of grafting. The ability to attach a piece of one tree to the branch of another is nothing short of magic. Detached scion grafting was discovered sometime during the first millennium B.C. and contributed to the movement of woody tree fruits out of Asia and into Europe along the silk road (Mudge, K. et al 2009). For Centuries now mankind has been able to perpetuate superior clones of tree fruits by removing a twig or bud from a superior mother plant and attach that twig or bud to a seedling of the same tree species. The result is a replicate of the mother tree growing on the root system of a seedling tree of unknown fruit quality.

Macintosh branch grafted onto Crabapple 

 The practice of grafting is not reserved for fruit trees alone however; many horticultural plants are also reproduced by grafting the most common example is the production of hybrid tea roses. Before the development of tissue culture, the fastest way for a horticulturist to rapidly build up the inventory of a newly discovered rose or other woody plant was by bud grafting. The bud grafting technique is great because the grafter can produce a new plant from a single vegetative bud. If the bud is attached to a large and vigorous rootstock, the plant will often be ready for sale following one season of growth. Grafting is not the only way to produce clones, many plants including roses can be cloned by rooting a cutting. The advantage of grafting is the horticulturist can produce much larger clones and many more of them in a shorter length of time.

Hybrid Tea Rose

Chip bud grafting

Other advantages of grafting include size manipulation, avoidance of juvenility, disease and abiotic stress resistance, damage repair, and the creation of unnatural growth forms. Orchardists and home hobbyists alike have found dwarf fruit trees advantageous. Producing full size fruit on a small tree allows an orchardist the opportunity to plant multiple varieties in the same space it would take to grow one full size fruit tree.  Dwarf fruit trees are also much easier to manage and pick than full size trees. Many fruit bearing trees grown from a seed will not begin bearing fruit until they are mature this is called juvenility. Grafting mature wood onto a seedling tree overcomes this natural habit and allows for fruit production a few years after grafting instead of 15 or more years for a seedling tree to come into bearing.

Production orchard dwarf apple

 Starting in the Twentieth Century research scientists began actively selecting under stalk of horticulturally important crops for resistance against, disease, insect pests, drought, and soil issues allowing these crops to be grown more widely. Even annual crops such as tomatoes and watermelons have been grafted onto hearty rootstocks that have been selected for resistance against soil borne pathogens and greater production. 

Dwarf  limber pine

Grafting also allows horticulturists to produce unique unnatural ornamental growth forms, think of weeping mulberries, weeping cherries, tree form roses, and bonsai conifers.  The last reason for grafting I’ll mention is a technique called inarching. Inarching is a rescue operation orchardists use to save trees that have been girdled by rodents or attacked by a root fungus. New resistant root stock trees are planted directly beside the suffering orchard tree the top of the small rootstock tree is cut off, whittled into a chisel point and inserted (by bending the stem) into a slot cut into the trunk of the suffering tree. When the graft union takes the new rootstock serves as a bridge across the damaged lower trunk or disease ridden root system.

Whip graft

Whip graft budding strip

Successful whip graft union

If you are interested in learning how to graft woody plants I will be teaching a hands-on grafting workshop open to the public on March 31. The workshop will be held at the Jefferson County Extension office located at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. Participants will be producing their own grafted apple tree to take home and plant. Dwarfing rootstock and a variety of apple cultivars to select from will be provided to participants. This workshop will be repeated April 1 and again on April 2. This workshop costs $20.00 per person, space is limited and reservations are required. 

Register at: http://jeffcohort.eventbrite.com

The Jefferson County fairgrounds are located at: 15200 West 6th Ave., Golden, CO 80401

Citation: Mudge, K. et al. 2009; A History of Grafting. Horticultural Reviews, Vol. 35; John Wiley &Sons, Inc.