Alfred Reed Bishop and Doris William Butler

The picture above is the very tap root of Bishop's Homegrown/Face Of The Earth Seed. My grandparents shortly after moving to Pekin Indiana from Greensburg KY in 1947 where they purchased the farm that is now Bishop's Homegrown. This picture was taken in Pekin in front of the old co-op next to the old railroad depot, neither of which exist today.

Search This Blog

Monday, August 16, 2010

Absinthe Melon: Crop Profile

Absinthe Melon: Crop Profile
Crop Type: Muskmelon
Breeder: Alan Bishop/Hip-Gnosis Seed Development/Bishop’s Homegrown
Breeding Method: Mass Cross, Composite, Genepool, Landrace
Objectives:
- Produce a high yielding vine bearing melons of exceptionally high quality under adverse conditions
- 1-5 pound, single serving, highly netted
- Powdery Mildew and Cucumber Beetle tolerance
- Drought and Low Fertility Tolerance
- High sugar content

Parents: Green Machine, Green Nutmeg, Rocky Ford (Eden’s Gem), Jenny Lind, Various numbered lines from gene banks, occasional contributions from orange fleshed muskmelons, honeydews, and true Cantaloupes. Also: Long Island Seed Project contributions and PMR 51

F4 Generation.

Comments: I have introgresed many lines into this particular gene pool over the past four years, selecting on productivity and taste as well as tolerance to low water intake and powdery mildew as well as cucumber beetles. Yearly we grow out between 50-100 plants to select from and taste plays heavily into the selection criteria. Very diverse population generally ripens much earlier than orange fleshed varieties and with much lower inputs. Generally short vines, very rarely rambling in type.

No comments: