It’s starting to be watermelon and melon season here so I though it would be good time to talk about storage. Here season is so short that it all comes almost at the same time and any bigger amount would need some way of storing. I have been drying melons and I suppose I could do same with watermelon as well as many other ways to prepare them, but having them fresh for long is another thing. Watermelons and melons as different species might have quite different requirements, but I thought they could go under same topic. So when talking about watermelon use that so there isn’t confusion.
Firstly what are the conditions to store in general? I have read many variety discriptions for watermelon that say that variety stores months, but no mention on what conditions. Melons I can’t remember if there have been that kinda claims although some might still store some time which would release some pressure. But googling only gave answers to storage for days to few weeks and some information was conflicting. Watermelons it seems like cool room temperature ( around 13-16C/55-60F) might be best, but melons might store in fridge temperatures as well. It’s not like I have that many options for bigger amounts, but would be nice to know some approximate conditions to target for. Ofcourse breeding should eventually skew towards conditions I have for them, but that’s long term. Any first hand experience in storing them fresh long term would be interesting.
Secondly; traits. What to look out for during growing season. Ofcourse could just use darwinian method during storage, but there might be some traits that get overlooked as valuable and removed for other reasons. This came to mind last year when one watermelon I had (from self saved, likely genetically diverse) very hard rind. Hard like having little trouple cutting it with knife, similar to some ripe c.pepo winter squash. Rind wasn’t even that thick, just hard. I don’t have experience on varieties that should store long so it made me wonder if it’s common trait with storage watermelons or if storage is unrelated to rind hardness. Certainly hard rind is likely to be usefull when battling the elements and pests so it’s likely one trait I will select for. That’s just one example. Probably there are many other traits to look out for. Melons I’m maybe not as hopefull of having them store very long, but any storage would be useful. Hard rind might be useful in them also and some obvious traits like not having cracks. Last year I did have some melons I had picked before full ripeness that ripened indoors, but some weeks after ripening were bad inside even though outside looked good. Wouldn’t want waste too many fruits, but I suppose that is part of getting progress. But maybe I could pick out some traits to select against so that I could atleast use those fruits that aren’t likely to store.