Watermelon Farmer Math

In an effort to make math more interesting for kids and to make my kids understand that math really is important, I have started a series of Farmer Math questions to go along with the Flat Aggie reports.  These are patterned after the blog Bedtime Math.  Some of the questions are easy enough for pre-schoolers and sometimes I come up with some to even challenge high school seniors.

These questions follow the report Dean's Farm Watermelons.  Additional educational materials can be found in the post All About Watermelons.

1.  Dexter planted 21 seedlings, Jill planted 10 seedlings and Jack planted 29 seedlings.  Who planted the most seedlings?  Who planted the least?

2.  How many seedling watermelon plants did the three kids plant?

3.  The kids planted 15 plants per row.  How many rows did they plant?

4.  If each plant produces 4 watermelons, how many watermelons will the seedlings planted produce?

5.  We know that bees must visit each watermelon bloom seven times to get it to produce a watermelon.  How many times must the bees visit all the blossoms to get the watermelons in question 4?

BONUS QUESTION:  If the germination rate in the greenhouse is 92% and the survival rate after transplanting is 98% and the farmer needs 2000 plants to produce watermelons, how many seeds does he need to plant to get the 2000 plants?

LOOKING FOR MORE WATERMELON MATH?  Check out the Watermelon Board Page for printable worksheets!

If you are a teacher or homeschooler that would like more information to go with the Flat Aggie reports, send me a message on my contact form.  Along with the report and the Farmer Math questions, we send each teacher an additional page of activities, crossword puzzles and sometimes a few hands on activities.

ANSWERS: 1a.) Jack  1b.) Jill  2.)60 seedlings  3.) 4 rows  4.)  240 watermelons  5.)  1680 visits  BONUS) 2219 seeds

-A Kansas Farm Mom

Delaware Watermelon Harvest

 Here is part II of a series of posts by Cory of Cory's Produce on Watermelon production in Delaware.  The kids that read his report to Flat Aggie LOVED how the watermelons ride from the fields.  -KFM

In the harvest season a crew will walk the field look and decide which melons is ready and cut it the stem from the vine. We refer to this part of harvest as the cutters. 

After the cutters have begun across the field, we begin to send another crew referred to as loaders across the field where they pick up each melon pass them to one another and they end up bulk loaded onto trucks, wagons and most commonly retired school buses. 

Once the vehicle that is being loaded is loaded it is drove to our packing shed. At the packing shed the melons are unloaded labeled, inspected and put into bins according to variety, Seeded or seedless, and size. Once the bin is full with the current count it is moved to a staging area of the shed in preparation for being loaded onto refer semi-trailers to be delivered to the store. 

Generally melons will be in the staging area no more than 36hrs before an order is submitted and they head for the store. Being in Delaware, we have a large market for melons in the north east, although I have shipped melons as far west as Colorado, and south back to Fort Myers, Florida depending on the year and the market. 

When Delaware is in production so is the eastern shore of Maryland, as well as in some cases Southern Missouri and Indiana. Though, due to Delaware being centrally located on the east coast we have a logistic advantage over other states. 

 

After the harvest of a field is completed the melons are mowed off the raised beds. 

Once the beds are mowed we will leave it sit for a few days and then we will begin removing the black plastic and drip tape from the raised beds. This is done in a series of steps first we being by running a machine called a mulch lifter across each bed. This splits the black plastic in the middle and helps lift the edges of it out of the ground.

 Next, a crew will go through the field and pile the plastic and tape. Once that is done, they will begin loading the plastic and drip tape into trucks or loaders which then take them to commercial size roll off dumpsters which is then taken to the local landfills and properly disposed of. 

Once all the plastic, drip tape, and drip tape supply line called lay flat is removed, we will sub soil rip the entire farm and work it down and I will plant a winter crop of barley or wheat to be harvested the following spring. 

In cases where I do not plant barley or wheat I will plant a winter crop to use up any extra nutrients, control soil erosion, and run-off, as well as improve soil quality, and keep top-soil from blowing away during the winter months. 

Thanks for reading about watermelon production in Delaware it’s been an honor to explain all the hours work and process of getting everyone a MAR-DELicious watermelon the favorite summertime treat to their household. Just remember it’s MAR-DELicious if it’s been grown in MARyland or DELaware.

 Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us about how watermelons are grown.  I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I did!

-A Kansas Farm Mom

Growing Loads of Watermelons

No, we aren't growing loads of watermelons in Kansas.  Remember my friend Cory who hosted Flat Aggie for Mrs. Piatt's class?  He wrote a couple of posts about how they grow watermelons in Delaware for me and I forgot to post them.  Sorry!  I have been eating some delicious watermelon and it reminded me.  Take a look at what it takes to get the watermelons to harvest.  I will post another blog post later this week all about harvest.  Thanks Cory!

Basic Overview of watermelon production in Delaware

Hello Friends, I was asked to blog about watermelon production in Delaware after meeting Nicole at a conference in Memphis a few months ago. Anyways, I own and operate Cory’s Produce, LLC which is a grain and vegetable operation based in Sussex County, Delaware.

 More Delicious or MAR-DELicious???

Watermelon production begins roughly in early April, the seeds are planted into 72 count trays and placed into a greenhouse where they are grown into transplants. 

The trays will spend about 6-7 weeks from the time they are placed into the greenhouse before they are taken out and transplanted. During this time and even in most cases in the fall of the following year, field work is being done in preparation for the upcoming season.

 In the fall, rye strips are planted which will become wind breaks to help protect young transplants from high winds in the spring of the year. Once the rye strips are planted and growing we begin to cultivate between the rye strips in the late winter early spring we will roto-till, sub soil rip, and then roto till each row.

 This can be very time consuming being it is done in 6-7ft wide cultivation equipment.  Once all the cultivation is complete we will band our starter fertilizer down each row before laying a raised plastic bed with drip tape. The drip tape will later water and fertilize the watermelon plants.  

Remember those trays we had in the greenhouse?  

Well, it would now be about mid-May and as we remove those trays from the greenhouse those seeds have become transplants that are set in many cases one row at a time into the raised beds in the field.

Thus again a very slow process making sure that each plant in correctly planted and not damaged in the process.

From here out the watermelon production is like most other field grown crops, they get closing monitored daily, watered, fertilized, and sprayed with preventative pesticides to grow a healthy, sweet, edible MAR-DELicious watermelon.

As we speed ahead too early to mid-July watermelon harvest has begun.

Every watermelon is hand harvested mostly done by migrant harvest crews who follow the production and harvest of watermelons from southern Florida up to the coast to Delaware.

Harvest will generally last until around Labor Day depending on the late summer weather and our hurricane season that can often ruin a crop due to large amounts of rainfall. 

Check out this post on Watermelon Harvest.  If you don't want to miss a post from this blog, add you email address to the "Follow by Email" box and it will be mailed to you each time I post.  I promise not to spam you and you won't miss one of my yummy recipes.  :) 

 --A Kansas Farm Mom