SEEDLESS WATERMELONS 101

Some people dislike watermelon seeds, but most people don’t mind them. I actually sort of like them. I’ve mentioned before that I used to spit them at my brother. I still do on those rare occasions when we’re together and watermelon is involved. I also like squeezing the seeds between my thumb and index finger and watching them go shooting off into parts unknown (usually in my brother’s direction).

Of course, if you don’t want to be bothered with seeds, you can always just buy a seedless watermelon. I remember hearing about seedless watermelons as a kid and thinking that it had to be some kind of joke or rare freak of nature thing. I imagined seedless watermelons costing hundreds of dollars each and only enjoyed by powerful world leaders or wealthy families on yachts.

Thankfully, I was wrong.

The truth is, seedless watermelons aren’t actually seedless. (Even as a child, I knew it was too good to be true.) That’s right. As those who’ve had them know, they actually contain a smattering of soft, white seeds which, admittedly, go down much easier than the hard, black seeds of regular watermelons.

So if they don’t have seeds – at least of the normal variety – how are seedless watermelons grown, you ask? Here’s some scientific stuff courtesy of Wikipedia:

They are the product of crossing a female tetraploid plant (itself the product of genetic manipulation, using colchicine) with diploid pollen. The resulting triploid plant is sterile, but will produce the seedless fruit if pollenized by a diploid plant. For this reason, commercially available seedless watermelon seeds actually contain two varieties of seeds; that of the triploid seedless plant itself (recognizable because the seed is larger), and the diploid plant which is needed to pollenize the triploid. Unless both plant types are grown in the same vicinity, no seedless fruit will result.

And how do you eat a seedless watermelon? The same way you’d eat a regular watermelon… only much faster.