07/18/06 Watermelon Time Part 1

Watermelon time! I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. July is definitely watermelon time. The colder the better. The Pacific Northwest is a prime area for growing some of the sweetest watermelons in the nation. While the overall number of melons grown is significantly small compared with growing regions in California, Arizona and Florida, the quality of the melon is high. George Clough, associate professor with the Hermiston Agricultural and Research Extension says there are several reasons this area grows such good melons. CLOUGH: Well it's two things. One is the climate and the second is the soils. The soils we have in this part of the northwest are sandy, well-drained soils. They warm up very quickly in the spring. They really have, (laughs) some people consider this a disadvantage, I consider it an advantage they have a minimal amount of native nutrition. And this allows us to manage the fertility exactly as we would like it to be. Clough says the climate of the area is a major plus. CLOUGH: Then you combine that with a combination of the climate. We have a fairly long, frost-free growing period. Generally from about the 15th of April till about the 15th of October. During that time we have fairly high daytime temperatures and fairly cool nighttime temperatures. Tomorrow we'll discover what makes a watermelon sweet and seedless. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.