Fruit of the Week: Seedless Watermelon

Technically, seedless watermelon isn’t completely seedless. However, the fruit does lack the hard black seeds that you find in the seeded variety, making it easier to eat. Seedless watermelons come from those with manipulated chromosomes. Colchicine, a chemical used to induce cellular division, is used on young plants. This causes the plant to have two sets of chromosomes instead of the one it would usually have. Once the eggs are pollinated, they produce seeds that can grow into fruit, but without genetically viable seeds. Basically, the fruit grows but the seeds are sterile, resulting in a watermelon that has only the easy to chew white seeds.

Pictured: Dulcinea Farm’s PureHeart Mini Seedless Watermelons