Thecityman
We weren’t too late we just picked our first melon. Not bad lots of rain lately
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I’m so glad to hear and see that! Looks like a clemson sweet? One of my all-time favorites. And I can just tell from the photo that it was almost perfectly ripe and I’m betting it was very sweet. Congrads!
I have cut a few of mine but they really weren’t 100% ripe until I cut a GREAT one this morning. It was a Wilson’s Sweet and the first one of those I’d ever tried. It was GREAT. Glad we both didn’t waste our time. That being said, some of my vines are dying before the melons are completely right, so I still can’t say being so late worked out just fine for me. Also, the vast majority of my melons aren’t going to be fully ripe until mid September. I don’t know about you, Mark, but for me watermelons are a SUMMER thing and I’m not a big fan of watermelons in the fall! Next year I’m going to get mine out early even if I have to wade out in water to do it!!! 
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Two things:
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I can head to about one zillion different forums if I want to read and engage in disparaging political commentary. Let’s keep this one about orchards and gardens, please.
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One of you asked about melons on par with Crenshaw, also my favorite type of melon. Crane is an heirloom Crenshaw type that has a shorter season and is somewhat smaller than your typical Crenshaw, advantages in my relatively short growing season and with a refrigerator already filled at this time of year with garden bounty. I’ve grown many different melons across the years and it is always my best.
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You are 100% absolutely right about that. I didn’t think it through and I apologize to everyone. It was inappropriate and I myself am glad this is a non-partisan forum, I didn’t bring up gore but I certainly advanced the topic and I sincerely regret it- won’t happen again.
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Fabulous watermelon for our area.
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Yes.
Mark that is a very large watermelon! It it weren’t for the slight deformity on the end it would be a MONSTER! Speaking of which, I’ve had an abnormal number of deformed melons this year myself. I’ve often heard its a pollination issue but that just makes no sense to me. I’ve always thought either a melon gets pollinated and develops, or it doesn’t and the flower just dies. I don’t see how it could be “partly pollinated” and that cause deformity. Isn’t that like being a little bit pregnant? But I’m open minded- if anyone can explain how pollination issues can cause deformity, I’d enjoy learning it. Also like to hear other theories on the cause of deformities.
But Mark, don’t let my talk of “deformities” in any way take away from your melon. It’s a very large melon that anyone would be proud of, and more importantly- the shape doesn’t affect the taste!!! (unless its EXTREME). So nice going. Being late didn’t seem to hurt you one bit! BTW, how many plants and how many melons do you have?
It’s certainly one of my all-time favorites. And here is another fascinating fact about Crimson Sweet- at least in my patch. Coyotes prefer Crimson sweet 1,000 times more than others (So maybe that says a lot about how good they are!). Seriously, though, in my patch the coyotes will step right over other melons- in some cases even push them out of the way if they are against a Crimson Sweet! This is even true with other round melons of about the same size, so it isn’t about what’s easier for them to bite into or otherwise approach. It really blows my mind. THey will wander all around my patch with ripe melons EVERYWHERE, but they only eat crimson sweet 99% of the time. Isn’t that just amazing??! Ah…gota love nature and her mysteries.
No mystery, they have a “tighter” neuron wiring for food sources and their sense of smell is multidimensional in comparison to ours. 
That’s easy to explain and understand. To get a fully formed melon all or nearly all the seeds must be pollinated. That could be hundreds or even a thousand seeds. For each seed a pollen grain must grow down into the embryo and pollinate an individual seed. They aren’t all pollinated by one pollen grain. The end that doesn’t fully develop didn’t get fully pollinated.
Now I’ll admit this isn’t something I’ve read but rather what I’ve deduced by watching melons and having many partially pollinated fruits. That deformed end doesn’t have fully developed seeds.
A melon isn’t pollinated by just one visit by a bee. It takes many visits
by many different bees, in order to become fully pollinated. When you see
a deformed melon, it only had a “one night affair.” Unless the melon is prone
to bottle nosing, which is a different story altogether.
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But that’s not the key point. It takes many visits because it takes thousands of pollen grains. Ordinarily a bee can’t do that in one visit. I can sometimes set a full fruit in one visit with a brush. But that’s a brush that has a big blob of yellow pollen. And I swirl it around so as to cover the entire stigma.
So I’m thinking that the entire surface of the stigma may need to be covered with pollen. Maybe each area on the stigma leads to a separate ovary. If that’s the case the entire surface of the stigma would need to be covered in pollen in order to pollinate all the seeds. A bee isn’t going to cover the whole stigma in one visit.
I’m thinking a watermelon has such a big stigma because it needs a separate pathway to each seed. One pollen tube doesn’t lead to all the seeds.
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You’re confusing me. If that’s not the key point, then what is?
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Interestingly when it was young the end was soft and I pushed my finger through the skin. It still formed and was obviously huge. It wasn’t a great melon and the deformed end was black
As far as pollination and deformity goes the patch has Carolina cross and Crimson sweet. Most of the Carolinas are deformed and almost all of the crimsons are perfect. I have about 10 plants of each and 40 or so melons
The key point is all the seeds need pollination, not just part of them. All it says about bees is they aren’t efficient pollinators.
I am really enjoying this and learning, so I appreciate the contributions. And I may be (ok, I am) a little slow, but I’m sure I understand all the theories being advanced. If every seed in a watermelon has to be individually fertilized with a grain of pollen (however tiny that may be) then it seems like there would have to be a separate staymen inside a flower for each seed in the melon. Since there are hundreds of seeds in a watermelon and only a small number of staymen in a watermelon flower, I don’t understand how each seed could be individually pollinated.
There is only one stigma. But think of it as a pipe with hundreds of tiny pipes inside for each pollen tube to follow down to an ovary/seed. Sort of like a fiber optics cable.
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We’re basically saying the same thing, just in different ways.