i had a great season growing watermelons, best growth i ever had actually... UNTIL the fruit set. when the fruit got to the size of golf balls / baseballs they developed black spots that spread to cover the entire fruit. i was soooooo close to getting my first melon crop too. darn it. does anyone have an idea of what this blight could be and possibly a treatment for or defense against it? thanks in advance... i will try to post a pic soon. ( photo / image / picture from razyrsharpe's Garden ) ( photo / image / picture from razyrsharpe's Garden )
How much rain have you had? I would suspect anthracnose. Pick off the bad ones and spray a fungicide to see if you can still get a few. Those are still pretty little that you should be able to get the next flush going, unless the whole plant looks bad.
it has only rained here twice, once for 35 days and the other time for 45 days. we have had a bunch lately... we are in the surplus for this time of year by 4".
Well, don't feel so bad about it....us too, but not only did it rain for those two times we also had a drought for the month of May, two weeks of 90 degree weather after the two rains..., then it has been dropping into the 50's at nighttime and low 50's some nights.... I am surprised ours don't look like that, but we plant in black plastic and the fruits and vines aren't on the ground.
my watermelons are actually off the ground on a trellis. i trained them up to avoid ground problems... the two specimens i pictured were appx. 3 feet above the mulch.
Well the mulch isn`t causing the problem although I would leave off the pine straw or use very little of it. Watermelons don`t like a lot of water and I think that's whats causing the problem. We also had an unusual amount of rain this year and I had problems with mine. End rot ! I would remove all the damaged ones and spray with a fungicide, just a simple betadine and water,1 ounce to a quart of water. Spray every couple of days for a while or until it dries up some. They will come back as long as they are blooming.
