A new watermelon F1 hybrid - 'Nongkeda No.5'.

A new early maturing watermelon F1 hybrid‘Nongkeda No.5’was bred by crossing inbred lines M18 as female parent and F23 as male parent. Its fruit development period is 28 to 30 days, and the whole growing period is 90-92 days. The variety is easy to bear fruits. The fruit’s index is 1.1. Its fruit is of round shape and covered with dark green bands in thin strip. The fruit rind is about 0.93 cm thick. It is good for storage and transportation. The color of flesh is bright red and the fresh is succulent with high quality and good flavor. The soluble solid content in the core area of flesh is 12.4 %, and the gradient in brim area is small. The field investigation shows that‘Nongkeda No.5’has stronger resistance to gummy stem blight than‘Jingxin No.2’, and there is a few fusarium wilt, anthracnose and powdery mildew didn’t occur. The single fruit is about 5.9 kg, and the yield is 48.0 t·hm-2. It is suitable for cultivation in facility watermelon planting regions in Shaanxi province and areas with same ecological conditions in early spring.