“My watermelon farm had abundant flowers but I can only see few fruits formation in spite and my yield per acre was very discouragingly poor…” this is but a painful expression from of one the local watermelon farmers I once came across. Farming watermelon is a very promising venture but as promising as it is, if not done under the guidance of rightful technical knowledge, experience and skill; the farmer may just be naively inviting losses.

The veggies family
Understanding vegetable families may just be the first step to success. Watermelon belongs to the family of cucurbits; the family of cucumber, watermelon, gourd, pumpkin, squash, zucchini etc. What is unique about the family with respect to this topic is that their flowers are unisexual; with male and female flowers on different plants (dioecious) or on the same plant (monoecious). This uniqueness is directly proportional to degree of fruiting and yield.

The flower pattern with respect to cucurbit
Just a reminder; I have talked briefly about this before in one of my articles on cucumber cultivation, you may as well visit Cucumber Cultivation Dictionary part 2 for more knowledge. I would therefore talk briefly about flower patterns once again. According to biology, there are basically two types of flower (in this respect): PERFECT and IMPERFECT FLOWERS.

A perfect flower
This type of flower has both male and female gametes (Sex organs) on THE SAME flower piece. It is usually self-fertilization i.e. it does not require cross pollination. If this occurs in animal kingdom, they are referred to as hermaphrodites. The chances of pollination are very high. Most often than not, easy pollination occur readily through flower parts movement or slight wind. Tomato, pepper, eggplant, okra etc. fall into this class. You need no extra measure to ensure fruiting. You can use any form of registered insecticide.
You may also read: Understanding the world of insecticide part 1

Imperfect flower
In this type, male and female gametes (sex organs) are not on THE SAME flower piece therefore fertilization only occurs through cross pollination MOSTLY by INSECT (Athropods). There are two types of imperfect flower: Monoecious and Dioecious or Gynoecious
 Monoecious flower: In this type, male and female gametes are on DIFFERENT flower piece but SAME parent plant. In order word, male flower on its own while female flower on its own as well but on the same parent plant. For example, if there are 20 flowers on the plant, 15 flowers could be exclusively female and 5 exclusively male. In this flower pattern, there is a need for cross pollination most especially by insects and wind. Cucumber (by nature), watermelon, squash, maize (all cereals) fall in this group.
 Dioecious flower: In this type, male gamete and female gamete are on DIFFERENT flower and DIFFERENT parent plants. In order word, when you see one parent plant, it carries ONLY male flowers while another plant carries ONLY female flower. This requires strong wind, and a lot of insect activities to ensure fertilization. Naturally, papaya and some other cucurbits belong to this group

The insect-pest control/your yield
Average local farmers and uninformed enlightened ones do not know anything about flowering pattern of cucurbits. As a result, they resort to using broad spectrum insecticide even during...(If you enjoy this article, you may please visit www.hybridveggies.com to read the rest and also see images and other related articles) Thank you.

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