The cost of hybrid Melon and Cantaloupe seeds!

[897tgigvib]

I was looking at some very beautiful new hybrid Cantaloupes in the online catalogs. Just a few seeds can cost over 8 dollars!

I'm actually not complaining about that. Not at all.
It makes me think...
What if I start making some of my own hybrid Cantaloupe or Cucumber, or Watermelon seeds and seel them at the same kind of cost?

Hokeyberjeebers, I could make a fortune, maybe even enough for a whole tank of gas in my old ford!!!

What would my hybrids be like?

Hmmm, they would definitely not be crosses of inbred lines.
The F1's would be slightly variable, just like open pollinated varieties because of that.

I would design my F1 hybrids so the seeds could be saved from them with most of the F2's being good, so that gardeners could do their own selecting for their own.

I would not use inbred lines for the purpose of not losing normal variety vigor after a few generations.

I might even use some of these very sophisticated hybrids as grandparent material.
For example, first cross Superstar F1 with orange flesh honeydew heirloom, then select from the F2's of that cross one to cross with Prescott's Fond Blanc, and sell the seeds from that cross, 25 seeds for 8 bucks!

Ya get 2 or 3 hundred good seeds per melon. Let's conservatively say 200 seeds. That's 8 packets per melon, (which yes, was labor intensive, but my own labor), and at 8 clams per packet, that adds up to 64 clams per melon! That's not as much as they get for cantaloupes in Japan, but it sure is a lot more than a cantaloupe costs around here.

Hay! This hybrid seed business can be a great iudea! Especially if you're the only one around specializing in old fashioned hybridizing, selling seeds that seed savers can save seed from to start their own future heirloom from.

At this kind of profit margin, even a very small operation can make a few bucks.

Ok. I need me another Type A person to be my boss to set me to doing this...To get me started...

 

[digitS']

I am not that "A" type, Marshall. When my boss would give me a "crew" to get a task done - I used to just hate it! I'd always have to work harder trying to cover the ground that the crew was assigned to cover. Guess I never got the "do it, do it right, do it now" attitude down.

But, I can be some encouragement. I am just now learning that this hybridizing of heirlooms is becoming the "in" thing! Take my Gary O Sena tomato. It isn't an heirloom. It's a cross between 2 highly respected heirlooms. Keith Mueller did that . . . and, it apparently wasn't quite as easy as it sounds. Not only did he have to "stabilize" the cross so that it would breed true but he must have had dozen of plants that he rejected from the get-go, maybe, hundreds of plants.

Still, not all of the ones that didn't quite turn out right were bad. He stabilized 2 more of these so as to have created 3 new varieties of tomatoes! So, he must have had many, many plants to deal with and to keep pedigrees on! The consumer will be the ultimate judge. It could be that they will fall in love with one and not the others but, I guess, they all started from that initial cross.

You gotta start somewhere, Marshall. How about an early-ripening charentais melon . . .

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Yea, good idea, an early and sure cropping Charentais...hmmmmmmm

Cross Charentais with Earlidew F1 season one.
Season two, grow eight of those F1's.
Save the open pollinated seeds from one melon from each of those eight plants.
Season three, grow 16 plants from each of the eight packets saved from last fall.
Among those 16 of each of the eight packets growing, (that's a total of 128 plants growing in eight patches), save seed from the Charentais quality and looking melons that are sure producing and early. That may be 6 to 10 plants like that.
Season four, grow about 6 plants each from the 6 to ten of last year's best nominees. Some will have lost their vigor, but a few will keep their vigor and traits. Save seed from those, and keep them separately packed.
Season 5 should have 3 or 4 similar selections of the early, sure producing, Charentais quality Melons.

All the melons that did not pass selections will be good to eat, and some of them will be orange fleshed Earlidews that grow good too. Thbere's another new variety from the cross.

Others may be that mint green flesh of Earlidew in a Charentais looking skin.
Some may well be ribbed honeydews that'd look like crenshaws...HAY! Those would make great breeding material to cross with a crenshaw to try making an early crenshaw!!!

 

[897tgigvib]

I like Crenshaw Melons!