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noQgarderner Black Creek, WI Apr 03, 2008

I have some seedless melon seeds (orange sunshine watermelon) the packet has 18 seeds and says it includes pollinator seed. what exactly is a pollinator seed and how do I tell which one it is? and how do I save seeds if I want them again next year?

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peachespickett Huntington, AR Apr 04, 2008

I believe a pollinator seed is a seed from a melon that is not seedless, i.e. a regular melon, and I think it's used because the seedless melons won't be seedless without being pollinated by a seeded melon, and I also believe the seedless melon seeds will be larger than the pollinator seed/s, which is supposed to be how you tell them apart...it has to do with triploids and diploids and cellular division and chromosomes, all of which is Greek to me....confusing and weird, I don't know much more about melons than that.You may want to try googling your melon variety and see if there's more info from growers or distibutors...good luck

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Apr 04, 2008

I thought I answered this yesterday but I don't see my post so I guess I must have gotten distracted and never hit send! I'm not a melon expert either, but I suspect that the watermelon won't produce fruit unless it's pollinated by a different type of melon plant, that's why there's the 2nd type. I also agree with peaches that the two types of seeds mostly likely are slightly different sizes, so look at your seeds carefully if you don't want to sow all of them.

As far as saving seeds for next year, seedless melons shouldn't produce seeds :-) However, seedless usually isn't always 100% seedless so you probably will get a few seeds, but probably not too many and since seedless melons are hybrids it's likely that it wouldn't come true from seed, so you might end up with something that's not seedless or might not even taste good. So your best bet would be to buy more seeds for next year.

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