After the vegetative stage is the fruiting stage and for the plant to produce fruits it needs flowers. For flowers to develop there are so many factors that are involved, among them is the age of the crop and crop stress. It is advisable to be proactive with watermelons because once the damage has been done it cannot be rectified, once you skip a certain stage you may not be able to come back and rectify that. Have an idea of what is supposed to be done especially in fertilizer application, and what you are going to apply in every stage of growth. During fruit development high potassium fertilizers increase the size of the fruit and sweeten the fruit. Water remains the driving force for increasing the size and weight of the fruit.
Fertilizers used in watermelon growing
At the vegetative stage in watermelons, we apply a nitrogenous fertilizer followed by a nitrogenous fertilizer then a calcium-based fertilizer eg. boron zinc. If you don’t do it uh in granular form you can use Foliar for the sake of boron and zinc. During fruit development high potassium fertilizers increase the size of the fruit and sweeten the fruit. All these fertilizers used can either be organic or inorganic, but potassium, whether organic or inorganic remains the same the manufacturing technique is what differs.
Nutrients required for growth
If your flower has reached a stage to produce flowers and it has not yet produced flowers it is lacking boron, which is a nutrient that induces flowers. There are so many other hormones that are needed, but boron and calcium are among the macronutrients that are needed for flower production. Sometimes you can produce a flower but it falls and you lose the flower, this is called flower abortion and can happen even if you use a lot of boron or calcium. Zinc is very important it holds the flower and gives the flower the support that is needed to prevent it from aborting. Calcium takes part in developing, expanding, and making the flower and the fruit enlarge.
