I ordered Mini Love watermelon seeds from Park Seeds. Received the package today, on the packet it says “Pollinator included”, in the packet there are 10 seeds of Mini Love as expected and three separately packed unmarked watermelon seeds. Last year I grew Mini Love from “Seeds and Such” and Sugar Baby bush from Burpee and both produced fine. So what this pollinator is about? I only plant three short vine watermelons this year and not sure what this “pollinator” variety would produce and how big it will grow. Anybody have any knowledge on why watermelon may need pollinator?
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All seedless watermelons need a pollinator. It can be a variety like you were provided or a seeded watermelon. If you have 2-3 different varieties of seeded melons you can do without the pollinator. The pollinators do bloom more than most seeded melons and are better at what they do.
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Interesting, my Mini Love never was seedless. I thought it is seeded, and it is seeded on the picture.
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It’s semantics, but appropriate to discuss here, i think…
These would be more appropriately termed a "pollenizer’, as the pollinator is the insect(usually) which carries/transfers pollen from one flower to another.
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Agree, I doubled checked - this is how they wrote it on package - pollinator 
I did some research. Seedless watermelons are triploid, and they need diploid for pollination. However, according to this site http://www.stokeseeds.com/product.aspx?ProductID=60485 Mini Love is diploid, so shouldn’t require pollination. But in any case, sugar baby is a good source of pollination, so I should be all set without the seeds provided. Though now I am wondering, what would grow out of them .
Mine grew small melons, 3-4 inches, that are worthless to eat.
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Where your seedless melons sucesfful ?
I’ve had plenty of good seedless watermelons both when using the pollenizer variety and when just using regular diploid varieties for pollen source.
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So in our climate, which isn’t exactly the same but fairly close, are seedless harder to grow?
Yes seedless are definately harder to grow. They are harder to establish, don’t yield as much, and have smaller melons, 15-20 lbs. My favorite Star Brite has melons that average 25-27 lbs.
The seedless do have a longer holding time. They don’t turn to mush as fast and are easier to pick in a good eating condition.
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I hand pollinate most of mine with a watercolor brush. This is my first year growing seedless. I used Janosik, sangria, and red moon and stars as my pollinators.
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I grew one Mini love this year with 2 Crimson sweet, I only got one Mini Love out of the whole patch, it has seeds, not seedless.
Mini love should is not seedless
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