Aug 8, 2008 4:17 pm US/Pacific
Good Question: How Do You Grow Seedless Watermelon
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
Joann from Sacramento asks a very question: How do you grow a crop of seedless watermelon?
Credit often goes to a genetics expert named O.J. Eigsti who's developed a marketable seedless melon in the 1930's. As for how he did it, we turn to a familiar face for the answers.
Michael Marks the Produce Man explains a seedless watermelon is created by cross pollination.
"You cross a diploid with a tetraploid and you come with a triploid – you got that?!" says Michael.
Let's start by looking at a watermelon field. About a quarter are seedless, and three quarters have seeds.
Bees need pollen from diploids, which are male for the genetically altered tetraploids which are female.
"And for every one row of these you have three to four rows of seedless. Now when the bees are out there doing there thing, they're crossing a diploid which is a true seedless with a tetraploid to come up with a seedless," explains Michael Marks.
Bees doing their thing mean of course carrying pollen from plant to plant. So, crossing – or cross- pollinating diploids and tetraploids leads to a fruit that has triploid seed which never fully develops – thus the seedless watermelon.
"What you don't understand that? Okay, it's like crossing a horse with a donkey to come up with a mule that does not reproduce – that's how they do it – its that simple!" says Michael Marks.
Interestingly, watermelons with dark seeds taste sweeter, because those seeds produce sugar.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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