Watermelon is a thermophilic culture; for the full development of fruits, a sufficient amount of sunlight is needed. The natural conditions of the middle latitudes are not very suitable for the traditional cultivation of melons and gourds. Experienced gardeners both in the Moscow region and the Leningrad region, and in other regions with cool summers, use simple grafting methods that allow them to get an excellent harvest of watermelons. How to plant a watermelon on a pumpkin, which method to use at the same time, each gardener chooses himself. There are several techniques that allow you to independently create a plant with unique properties. In this way, gardeners manage to get an excellent harvest even in not very suitable conditions.

Why is watermelon inoculation carried out on lagenaria

Watermelon can be grafted with any pumpkin variety, but it has the perfect combination and full compatibility with the lagenaria variety. By grafting a watermelon onto a bottle pumpkin, you can get:

  • early harvest;
  • larger fruits, improved taste;
  • a plant that is protected from specific diseases.

Watermelons, as heat-loving plants, need a well-heated soil. At a soil temperature below + 16 ° C, the plant stops growing and developing, which negatively affects the quality and quantity of the crop. Grafting a watermelon on lagenaria allows you to get a plant with a watermelon root system. In such a culture, development continues at a sufficiently low ambient temperature. Thus, the yield of the crop is significantly increased, the taste is improved due to the increase in the amount of sugars, the fruits ripen 10 to 15 days ahead of schedule.

Grafting watermelon

Grafted watermelon plants are not susceptible to fusarium wilt, which can also affect cucumbers. For an early harvest, you can plant a pumpkin or squash.

When to vaccinate watermelons in the Moscow region

You can plant watermelon and pumpkin seeds for seedlings at the same time, or watermelon 3 to 4 days earlier, in the 20th of April. Daylight hours by this time are already of sufficient duration, so the sprouts will not thin out due to lack of light. There are several ways to properly plant a watermelon on a resistant lagenaria. Such manipulations do not take too much time and do not require special skills.

One of the most common methods of vaccination is the tongue method, which even novice summer residents can correctly perform:

  1. When a sprout of a watermelon (scion) has 1 - 2 leaves, and a lagenaria (stock) has 1 real leaf, you can begin to vaccinate. To do this, with a very sharp knife or blade under the cotyledon leaves of the pumpkin, an oblique incision is made for 2/3 of the stem from top to bottom.
  2. In a similar place on the sprout of the watermelon, the same incision is made, from bottom to top.
  3. The incised stems of the sprouts are combined, superimposing the incised "tongues" on top of each other.
  4. The stems are tightly fixed with a foil tape or a special clothespin.
  5. Both sprouts are planted in the same container with fertile soil and exposed in a sunny place.
  6. After 4 days, the stem of the watermelon is pinched below the site of inoculation, because of this, the provision of the sprout with "native" roots is disrupted. Therefore, the grafted plant switches to full provision of a powerful pumpkin root system.
  7. After 8 - 9 days from the moment of inoculation, you need to completely cut the transferred stem of the watermelon and cut off the growing top of the lagenaria.

Thus, a new plant is obtained with a powerful pumpkin root system and watermelon foliage. By this method, melons, cucumbers, zucchini can be grafted.

Important! Use a very sharp, thin blade to make cuts in the scion and rootstock. It is with such a blade that high-quality cuts can be made that will quickly grow together.

Crossing pumpkin and watermelon by the method of convergence

A fairly simple method allows you to independently cross a watermelon for lagenaria:

  1. In one medium-sized container, filled with loose fertilized soil, one seed of kavuna and one pumpkin are sown at the same time. The seeds are placed very close to each other so that the sprouts germinate side by side.
  2. When both seedlings have 1 - 2 full-fledged leaves, on the stems from each other's side with a sharp blade, you need to make thin longitudinal slices of the skin at the same level.
  3. Gently connect the sprouts, while the cut parts should be in close contact.
  4. You can fix the stems for several days using foil or a special clothespin.
  5. After the stems grow together, you will need to cut the trunk with the watermelon root system and the top of the harmelon.

The grafted plant must grow stronger before planting in open ground.

End-to-end grafting method

When the pumpkin seedling has 1 true leaf, and 1 - 2 leaves have grown on the sprout of the watermelon, you can inoculate with the end-to-end method. With a blade, a very sharp knife or a surgical scalpel, an oblique cut of the stem is made on the lagenaria. This removes the growing point and one cotyledonous leaf, the second must remain intact on the stem.

Butt

The top of the watermelon sprout is cut obliquely below the cotyledon leaves and connected to the pumpkin cut. Both stems are connected with a special clothespin or clip. The grafted plant needs to be provided with a warm and humid environment for faster and easier engraftment of cut surfaces. For this purpose, the pot with the plant can be covered with a cut-off plastic bottle or plastic bag. The ambient temperature should be within the range from + 24 ° С to + 26 ° С. It will take several days for the sprouts to take root, after which the connecting clip is removed.

Lateral incision grafting method

You can easily graft a watermelon yourself into a side cut on the stem of a pumpkin. When there is already at least 1 true leaf on the Lagenaria sprout, and 1 - 2 leaves on the Kavuna seedling, you can graft the plants. A sharp knife blade on the pumpkin stalk below the cotyledonous leaves makes a vertical cut approximately 1.4 - 2.0 cm long. The same sharp blade is used to cut the watermelon top at an acute angle below the cotyledonous leaves.

The cut off top of the watermelon is inserted into the vertical cut on the stalk of the harmelon, so that the cut surfaces of the two plants are in close contact. The vaccination site is fixed with a vaccination clip for several days.

Important! Do not remove the vaccine clip before the due date. This can lead to a violation of the fusion of the scion and rootstock.

A greenhouse effect is created for the plant using a plastic bottle or plastic bag cut off from one side for the period of overgrowing of the slices. Approximately 10 days after the successful inoculation, the top of the lagenaria is cut off, leaving a well-established watermelon sprout. This is how a new plant is obtained with a watermelon tops and a powerful pumpkin root system, capable of actively taking moisture and all the necessary nutrients from the soil even at low ambient temperatures. The roots of an ordinary watermelon, accustomed to growing in well-warmed light soils, do not have such features.

Grafting into cleft

For grafting into the rootstock split, it is better to use Lagenarium seedlings sown 3 to 5 days later than watermelon.The grafting process goes very well when a full-fledged leaf is just beginning to form on the stock, and the scion already has 2 or even 3 leaves.

A thin sharp blade is cut off the growth point on the pumpkin stalk, while removing the forming leaves. At the site of the cut, an injection is made with a toothpick, extending the empty space literally by 1 - 2 mm. between the cotyledonous leaves. A watermelon top cut at an acute angle with leaves and a growth point is inserted into the resulting split. The cut surfaces of both plants are pressed tightly against each other using foil tape or a grafting clothespin. This fixation is left for several days until the rootstock and scion are completely fused together.

It's worth using the blade

This method may confuse some gardeners, however, with patience and perseverance, you can quickly gain the skills of grafting watermelons and melons into clothespins and using the injection method.

Care Tips for Grafted Watermelons

Gardeners who cultivate land in regions with a short cool summer are unlikely to boast a good harvest of ordinary melons and gourds. That is why the inhabitants of the Penza region plant watermelons grafted on the lagenaria.

When the grafted seedlings reach the age of 1 month, they can already be planted in open ground. It is better to choose plots for sowing melons and gourds with good sunlight, if possible on a hill. All melon loves light loose soil, but grafted kavunas, which have a powerful pumpkin root system, feel very comfortable on dense soils.

Important! Crop rotation must be observed. The ideal predecessors of watermelons are root crops, legumes, cabbage.

For planting watermelons crossed with pumpkin, you do not need to use the standard scheme for planting melons and gourds, up to 7.5 - 8 m2 of free area should be allocated per plant. Many novice gardeners ask themselves: why leave so much room for each small sprout? The answer is very simple: the powerful root system of the crossed plant supplies much more nutrients, which contributes to the active growth of the tops and the formation of fruits. A thicker planting may result in thickening.

Watermelons need abundant watering during the period of leaf and ovary growth, but by the beginning of fruit ripening, watering will have to be reduced to increase the sugar content of the crop.