Name Variations[]
- bizeer batehh
About Watermelon seeds[]
Wikipedia Article About Watermelon seeds on Wikipedia
Although the so-called "seedless" watermelons have far fewer seeds than the seeded varieties, they generally contain at least a few soft, pale seeds. They are the product of crossing a female tetraploid plant (itself the product of genetic manipulation, using colchicine) with the diploid pollen. The resulting triploid plant is sterile, but will produce the seedless fruit whenever pollenated 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.
In Japan, farmers of the Zentsuji region found a way to grow cubic watermelons, by growing the fruits in glass boxes, and letting them naturally assume the shape of the receptacle. The square shape supposedly makes the melons easier to stack and store, but the square watermelons are always more than double the price of the normal ones.