I have been looking for a list of how long a fruit takes to mature after pollination. I’ve put together the information, but some came from AI (LM) so buyer beware. I’ll add to the list as I find more.
Strawberry 3–6 weeks
Tomato 4–8 weeks
Bell Pepper 10–14 weeks
Blueberry 6–19 weeks (45–135 days)
Watermelon 2–5 weeks
Corn 15 - 22 days
Cantaloupe 35-45 days
Honeydew 45 - 60 days
Moschatas 45 - 60 days
This is an interesting thing to be aware of and I have not seen other lists with this information, could be really helpful, and will also probably be very climate dependent?
You can see from the information that the ripening time is a range, based on a lot of variables. Weather was one of those in the information I found. Others were variety, cultivation practices, size of fruit, etc.
I was initially trying to figure out why cantaloupes started ripening over a month ago and the honeydew types are just sitting there. They all got pollinated at about the same time. So if the information is correct, I may have another two weeks on those.
Unfortunaltely that seems like complete BS. I have noticed that AI can compile information that is completely unrelated so I wouldn’t trust that, but try to validate it. Which in it self might be hard if someone has used that information as base. Like in this case it might take information from text that has flowering, ripening and then some numbers close to it, but it might not be related to days from flower to maturity, but might be harvest season. Looking at those dates, in many cases that looks closer to trurth. Secondly it’s quite hard to compile a range. Shortest days to maturity can be quite easy to have accurate, but ripening can be postponed almost indefinetely and so maximum would always have that as a caveat. Stress can also fasten ripening, but should that be considered within normal range? Then there is climate. It seems like melons and watermelons in warmer climate take month to little over to ripen, but over here usually would expect them to take 45 days without effect of stress.
I can try to make some list excluding early stress related ripening and delays from cold weather or other factors. This is to maturity, if not otherwise stated. Note that some record fruits like pumpkins or watermelon can continue growing (although slowly) past their maturity, but they still ripen fairly similarly to others in their species.
Cucurbitaceae: generally fairly similar from about month to 6-7 weeks
Capsicum annuum: 45-65days
Capsicum baccatum: seems like it’s always within few days of 60 days
Capsicum chinense: seems like it’s always within few days from 45 days
Tomatoes: 40-65days
Corn: milk stage around 21days, full maturity month or little over.
Tomatillos: 45-60 days
Strawberry and blueberry I don’t have that wide experience besides from wild bilberries, but at least 19 weeks is way off. 6 weeks sounds about right for blueberries, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was shorter. Strawberry might be accurate.
I don’t think there is that much variance within melons, week, maybe 2, but not especially between different types. Size affects a little, but not as much as some might think. There can be variation because there is variation in the start of the fruit development. I have seen that there can be over weeks delay from flowering to when fruit actually starts to grow. Plant is thinking whether to grow or abort it. Sometimes small fruit can sit there for weeks, but I haven’t seen any start to grow after that long. It might be possible in some climates/conditions. In my case it’s usually that they already have a fruit growing and they abort it because they already have enough. I could see that if conditions are stressfull and plant doesn’t have other fruits growing that they might delay it more than week that I have observed.
I was just looking some of these up this morning and those numbers seem right on for what the universities are saying. Of course those are southern universities and I am in the north. My garden seems to take longer by quite a bit, but I have cold nights and that seems to be a big factor.
So it’s all BS, even those that I researched myself, and note that much if what you list is within or close to the range listed. So NOT BS.
Sorry, I was maybe little too harsh. Although not many of them are that close and the ones that are off are way off. Problem is that few bad apples will ruin the the whole bunch. How can anyone trust if part of is BS to put it pluntly? Better stick to those that are somewhat realistic/confirmable and leave the ones that aren’t. AI will use those as well and it just amplifies the mistake.
This might be one of those things where there are so many variables that we can only compile a chart for what happens on our own land using our own seeds, and even then it will vary from year to year. But it’s a useful thing to do for our own gardens for sure.
Yes there are, but the variability is less than one might think. Stress and cold are really the 2 main factors, but there is limit when coldness stops growth or kills plants and main affect is with plants that actually need heat. Like in my case it adds 10 days to melons and watermelons (if it get’s colder I don’t get any), but it doesn’t usually affect something like squash during cropping period. Stress on the other hand can speed up only to certain point before it is impossible for the plants to make seeds. So even if I have had peppers ripen week from flowering I would discount it because they never make seeds and fruit is size of a pin. I also had one tomato plant that was some way genetically broken. It kept the flowers for weeks like in suspended animation and barely started to make any fruits (which looked like they weren’t developing normally either). This was obviously case of faulty development and I think point is to give normal cases rather than what might happen if something is wrong. If something takes suspiciously short time or long it’s more than likely that something has gone wrong and it might be worth noting the conditions that might have affected so that you can do something about it.