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Bethlehem CT

What a nice facility, do you remember what they are doing in this experiment. What bugs are they monitoring for with the yellow sticky traps?

3/28/2024 7:14:07 AM

Partlow,Va

They were growing out these melons for seed and were using the sticky traps for pests. The melon research is about genetic coding. The goal is to study the coding to hopefully "mark" a gene that has traits that are resistant to fusarium. They are using african wild melons(multiple varieties)that are fusarium resistant and sugar baby melons for this. They use a new instrument that will run a seed through and overnight they have data. much data on genetic coding. They study this(monthes?) and choose the promising ones to try for the next batch. At seeding all soil is full of homemade fusarium so right when they sprout you see the fails quickly. In one of the earlier pictures you can see a table full of seedlings with mixed results. Melons must be harder because I think they have only marked one melon gene so far.

3/29/2024 9:26:59 AM

Torrance, Ca.

That's so cool! They have small pumpkins they've made fusarium resistant. Hopefully one day we'll have a way to make our giants resistant! Many growers like myself really struggle with this disease and fusarium really likes pumpkins and all the water we use.

3/29/2024 12:01:25 PM