13 Must Know Watermelon Growing Tips

Direct sowed watermelon germinating strongly with only a single light drink

1. Deep plough with a tractor.

2. Make planting stations of depth 20cm.

3. Put heaped shovel of well rotten manure of either cattle, poultry, pig or goat.

4. Put 60g of Compound C on each planting station and mix with the manure and soil within the planting station.

5. Put the soil to almost level of the planting hole.

6. Irrigate to field capacity on each planting hole. The following day plant 3 plants on each planting station.

7. Do a light irrigation regularly until there's good germination. Check Cutworm effect on young seedlings and if any, spray any one of the following insecticides: Decis forte, Chloroprifos, Lambda.

For me, l prefer Decis forte since it is persistent in the soil compared to other insecticides. After 7 days of seedlings emergence, remove one seedling per planting station leaving two seedlings per planting station.

8. 2 weeks after germination, top dress with AN (34.5% N) 5 cup per plant not Pagomba Pagomba plus Winstart (160g per 16 litre of clean water) or Omni boost (300g per 16 litre of clean water) for root development.

9. At 4 weeks. Top dress with Potassium Nitrate 2 cup per plant plus start to apply Winglow at 160g per knapsack or 16 litre of clean knapsack.

Winglow promotes vegetative cropping.

At 5, 6, 7 weeks start to apply Winbloom at 160g of clear water or Best broom from ZFC. It promotes crop flowering.

At week 6, apply 2 cup (2g) Potassium Nitrate.

At Week 8, apply Calcium Nitrate. During this crop flowering stage, irrigate daily because crop water requirement increases.

10. Watermelon is very prone to attack by fruit flies hence there is need to spray the following insecticides:

• Thunder
• Acetacure
• Malathion 50EC
• Nemesis
• Cartap Hydrochloride

NB: Rotate three of the above insecticides at day 3 to 4 interval.

11. From a 2-leaf stage of the crop, spray Preventative fungicides in rotation:

• Copper Oxychloride
• Bravo
• Mancozeb

This should be done on weekly basis on crop under drip irrigation.

If the crop is under overhead irrigation, spray should be done on every 4 to 5 day interval.

12. For curative fungicides, use at least one of the following:

• Chemlaxyl/ Ridomil Gold
• Tebuconazole/ Folicur
• Otiva
• Bion

This should be done every fortnight on crop under irrigation.

If the crop is under overhead irrigation, apply every week.

13. Spacing is 150cm between the rows and 75cm from plant to plant.

After practising these activities. You will be amazed with the results. Very big watermelons!

I am assuring you of getting 22kg per fruit with crimson sweet variety.

The agronomic practises and crop protection is similar for other cucurbits such as pumpkin kayla, Butternut Waltham Plus and Cucumber.

For cucumber, spacing is 40 x 100cm but placing one seed per planting station. This means that application rate per plant will be +30g of compound C.