By Eliezer Zuckerbraun, NAFTA Business Manager
& Gadi Leibovich, Breeding Manager, Curcubits
Gadi@zeraim.co.il

Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) is grown throughout the world as a staple food (edible seeds), a dessert food (edible flesh) and for animal feed. Although it is primarily eaten fresh, it is also eaten in Africa as a cooked vegetable. In Russia, watermelon is a staple food, eaten pickled and used for production of syrup by boiling the sugary flesh. In China, firm-fleshed cultivars are cut into strips and dried for use as pickles or glace candy.

Watermelon has been improved by domestication and by formal plant breeding into an early-maturing, compact plant with large fruits of edible, sweet flesh.

In recent years, there have been major changes in the demographics of household size and structure, in general families getting smaller. These changes influence the market and the consumption of fruits and there has been a new, ever-increasing trend towards small, personal-sized watermelon. This preference for small watermelons is increasing the overall market size rather than replacing the demand for larger-fruited watermelons.

Recently, Zeraim Gedera has developed and is about to launch new varieties of personal watermelons. These new varieties vary from Tiger Stripe to Crimson Sweet to dark (Sugar Baby) types with different background colors and sized from 1.0 – 4.0 kg.
The shape of the ‘personal’ watermelons varies from round to oval, and the plant is compact, meaning a high yield with 4-5 fruits concentrated close to the plant with good leaf cover. This small, ‘personal’ watermelon requires a different agro-technical approach to achieve continuous growth for selective fruit picking.

Packaging, sales and marketing of the product will be different, as the fruit will be packed in boxes of 6-8 fruits, sold by the unit, and labeled with known brand names where consistent supply of high quality
will be required.

‘Personal seedless’ watermelons in some ways are more similar to cantaloupes than to watermelons. These “cantaloupe size” watermelons need to be planted at much higher density, require more fertilizer and more irrigation. Also, the timing of irrigation will be similar to that of cantaloupes. Harvesting and packaging will also closely resemble that of cantaloupes. What is not different from the traditional large watermelons is the watermelons’ superior shelf-life at room temperature. Refrigeration is an absolute must when transporting melons a long distance, but not so with watermelons, including the personal size.

Our vision is of high quality, small watermelons in different size categories and rind patterns suitable for the different market segments, with excellent taste and aroma, excellent texture, color and shelf-life.
These ‘personal- size’ watermelon varieties are being developed with the final consumer, the farmer and all supply chain partners in mind.

Characteristics sought after by the final consumer are:

• Excellent crispy flesh texture.
• Excellent sweet taste
• Eye-appealing color of flesh and rind
• Firm flesh
• Mouth- watering taste

Most important is that all of these characteristics remain consistent day in and day out.

On the other hand the farmer is looking for:

• High yields
• Agronomical advantages such as disease resistance.

Disease resistance can have the benefit not only of improving yield consistency, but also lowering the farmers’ spray bill & reducing consumers’ health risks by use of less chemicals. The shipper is of course always looking for:

• Longer shelf-life.

To please all links of the Supply Chain is a real challenge for Zeraim Gedera. It is difficult to achieve small watermelons with so many diverse characteristics in one variety. It requires new breeding approaches, introduction of new germplasm, the latest in technological advances (such as PCR genetic markers) and short breeding cycles. Each variety must be studied well in order to understand its particular agro- technical needs so that growing techniques can be adjusted to maximize performance of each variety.

Zeraim Gedera Watermelon Breeding Team
These challenges are being met by a dynamic watermelon breeding team consisting of Head Watermelon Breeder Emmanuel Cohen, and Cucurbit Team Leader Gadi Leibovitch.