My favourite fruit

My favourite fruits are the cantaloupe melons from Japan and Taiwan. Botanically, they may be classified as berries.

In the United States, the majority of cantaloupe melons are produced in California, Arizona, Texas, and Georgia. These states provide the warm, long growing season required of these melons.

On a global scale, China is the largest producer, putting out about 50% of global production. Taiwan and Japan produce high quality specialty melons in greenhouses as well.

They can also be found growing in my apartment =P

here's a picture of the male flowers of the Yubari King Melon:


and a fruit of a Taiwanese F1 cultivar:

   

franken-plants

chances are you've heard the story of frankenstein where some guy put together a body using parts from diff... well, you know the story. what you probably didn't know if that you've been eating franken veggies on more than one occasion now. while plant's aren't brought back from the dead, certain method of production call for plants to be cut apart and recombined. such a process is referred to as grafting.

you say: 'thats soooo cool!... wait, why?!'

well, thats because its not the easiest thing to create the ultimate plant(and also just cos we can!). you see, plants with great growth traits are limited by their root systems. because of this, some cultivars known as root-stock cultivars have been specially bred for robust root development and nutrient uptake as well as disease tolerance. put the shoot from the former on the root of the latter and we've got ourselves a plant that will outperform other cultivars in terms of yield and resistance to disease.

its an expensive and time consuming process though cos you have to pay for labour and extra seed so such a process is typically done only for fruit trees as well as high value crops like tomatoes and the Japanese yubari melon that can go for over $100 a fruit (!!).

stay tuned for some photos of a tomato graft (we're waiting for it to heal right now)

compost

plants grow in soil. we feed plants fertiliser. wait.. what's with that bag of mucky stuff called compost?

well compost is organic matter prepared for incorporation into the ground, vegetative waste is typically gathered into a pile and allowed to rot part way so that the easily decomposable matter is gone and the more resistant stuff is left behind. now that you know what it is, you'll go 'yuck! why do i want that in my soil??' well.. turns out that organic matter is beneficial for plant growth.

soils consist of 3 major components. they are the mineral component(sand, silt, clay), organic matter, and the pore spaces between these. organic matter is important for a number of reasons, but we'll just cover 2 of them.

organic matter increases the ability of soil to 'hold on' to nutrients. the acid groups that abound in organic matter are negatively charged, and hold on to positively charged nutrient ions like NH4+ and CA2+. this ensures that your fertiliser doesnt wash out immediately and go to waste.

secondly, organic matter helps maintain soil structure and increases porosity. porosity(the amount of pore space in the soil) determines how easy it will be for oxygen to reach the roots, the amount of water the soil can retain, and how easy it will be for the plant roots to grow. typically, an ideal soil has about 50% porosity. incorporating compost will help increase nutrient holding capacity and porosity for a happier plant!

and of course happier plants grow faster

which means we can eat them sooner ^^

but i digress ><

10:10:10

we know plants need 'food' in the form of fertiliser, but there are countless brands and formulae for fertilisers and im willing to bet that a large number of us aren't chemist and have had no clue on which to use after looking at the ingredients label. for this reason, fertilizer manufacturers have a standard thats loosely refered to as 'NPK content'

the 3 nutrients needed most by plants are Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium that have the chemical symbols N, P and K respectively. the NPK content describes the concentration of N, P and K in each mix of fertiliser, allowing growers to better understand what which to use. lets take a look at some typical mixes and see how we can understand them.

these are my personal favourite for hydroponic systems. first let's take a look at Maxigro. the NPK content shows 10-5-14. this corresponds to a 10% N, 5% P2O5, and 14%K2O content. note that only nitrogen is expressed in its elemental form. next up, Maxibloom has 5%N, 15%P2O5, and 14% K2O. ok.. so now you understand what the number mean.. but how does that help me?

well, it turns out that these nutrients are required for different reasons. N is required for vegetative growth, K is important for root growth, and both P and K are important for flowering and fruiting. this means that if i'm growing leafy greens, i'll need more N that i would P and paying for fertiliser with a high P content would be a waste as the plant wont use it (we get to eat it before it flowers ^^). similarly, if your tomatoes were fruiting but you didnt have enough P out for it, you'd be compromising on fruit quality.

and here's a trick. you don't have to stick to just one fertiliser. when i grow melons, i'll use a high N fertiliser initially. when the plant is in full fruit, i switch to the high P, low N mix to support the fruit and reduce vegetative growth (we want those sugars going into our melon, not more leaves). and then when it has just started fruiting but is still growing vegetatively, just use a mix of both! this way you'll have large, healthy leaves to give you the best fruit!

F1, seed saving and seedless watermelons!

If you're like me, you've probably looked at a seedless fruit and wonder how its even possible to grow them. we all know that seeds come from fruits, fruits come from plants, and plants come from seeds. well.. if seedless fruit have no seeds, and it came from a plant, but that plant doesn't produce seed.. it just doesn't make sense!

in order to answer that question, lets first have a look at F1 hybridisation. If you're reading this, you're probably interested in plants, and so you've probably heard the term 'F1 hybrid'. the term 'hybrid' describes a plant that resulted from a cross between 2 parent plants with different genetic traits. 'F1' tells us that its the first generation resulting from the cross.

in plant breeding, parent plants that a homozygous for certain traits are crossed to create an F1 hybrid that bears genetic material responsible for the desirable traits in both parents. for example, if plant 1 is homozygous for redder fruit, and plant 2 is homozygous for big fruit, a cross between the 2 would result in an F1 hybrid with large fruit that are also redder. this is, of course just a simple example and is much more complicated in reality.

in any case, an F1 hybrid is a cross between 2 homozygous plants in order to combine the desirable traits into one super plant. they are generally more vigourous, more uniformed, exhibit better characteristics, and in some cases resistance to disease or drought tolerance.

keep in mind though, that the offspring from an F1 hybrid will not 'hold on' to these traits due to reasons that are a bit too complicated to discuss here. because of this, its never a good choice to save seed from an F1 crop.

now that we've settle this, you've probably guess that seedless water melons are hybrids. if you did, go get some chocolate as a reward for your good thinking! seedless water melons are, in fact, a hybrid, albeit a slightly different one. one parent of the hybrid melon possesses 4 copies of each chromosome while the other possesses 2. this results in a offspring with 3 chromosomes that does not provide seed!

AHU, GDD, CHU: what are they?

ever wondered how farmers know when to grow their crops and when to harvest them? how about which crop can or cannot be grown? well, thats there Accumulated Heat Units, otherwise known as Growing Degree Days and Cumulative Heat Units, come in.

As with all living things, plants are reliant on enzymes to catalyse almost all of their metabolic pathways. the rate of reaction of an enzyme catalysed reaction is highly dependent on temperature- low when cold, increasing with temperatures below the denaturation point. below a certain Base Temperature, enzyme action is so low that the plant 'shuts down' and there is little growth. because of this, we can use the amount of time a plant has experienced above its base temperature to calculate it's growth stage. the method to calculate AHU is as follows:

mean daily temperature = (highest + lowest)/2
daily heat units = mean daily temperature - base temperature
accumulated heat units = sum of daily heat units over period of cultivation

to illustrate this let say we are calculating AHU for pea plants. Yesterday's daily high was 28ºC and its low was 17ºC. Today's daily high was 30ºC and the low was 16ºC. peas have a basal temperature of 20ºC

our mean daily temperatures are as follows:
yesterday: (28+17)/2 = 22.5
today: (30+16)/2 = 23

our Heat units are as follows:
yesterday: 22.5-20 = 2.5
today: 23-20 = 3

our AHU would be the sum of both days, or:
2.5+3 = 5.5

but how do farmers use this? well, each plant requires a certain amount of heat units to complete its growth and for maximum yield. by comparing this with historical data for available heat units in a season, farmers can come forecast the time they need to plant so they will be able to harvest at a specified time. this is especially important for agronomic crops and vegetables destined for processing and canning where contracts are signed between the processing company and farmer to deliver a crop on time.

welcome to eat moar veggies!

Hi!!

I'm Benjamin, a horticultural sciences major at UF in Gainesville Florida. Born an raised in Singapore, my interest and passion in horticulture drew me to accept a government scholarship to study horticulture in the States.

As part of a project for one of my classes, I've set up this blog to relate my experiences in cultivating vegetables in the field, as well as the information and understanding garnered throughout the course. As an introduction, I'll leave you with a short list of my favourite fruits and vegetables.

Fruit:
I most enjoy grapefruit, starfruit, durian, pineapple, and nectarines and soft barlet pears. On the other end of the spectrum, I don't like persimmons >< 

Vegetable:
My all time favourite vegetable has to be Kailan (chinese broccoli), followed by watercress, bok choy, chinese spinach, long beans, corn, butternut squash, and orange pepper.

I love mushrooms as well, but that will have to be left for another time!

-ben