{"id":2032,"date":"2015-11-12T13:53:48","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T13:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.whataboutwatermelon.com\/?p=2032"},"modified":"2017-06-12T13:54:26","modified_gmt":"2017-06-12T13:54:26","slug":"how-breeding-produced-the-modern-watermelon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whataboutwatermelon.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/how-breeding-produced-the-modern-watermelon\/","title":{"rendered":"HOW BREEDING PRODUCED THE MODERN WATERMELON"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The still life you see above was painted by Italian artist Giovanni Stanchi sometime between 1645 and 1672. It features a variety of fruits, including peaches, plums and pears, but take note of the odd-looking specimen in the bottom right. Yep, that\u2019s a watermelon. Or at least what a watermelon looked like 350 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>So how did the watermelon go from something that resembled a giant pomegranate to the succulent, red, juicy fruit we know and love today? The answer lies in breeding.<\/p>\n<p>Paintings like Stanchi\u2019s are fascinating because they provide a glimpse not only of the styles and attitudes of life centuries ago, but they also allow us to see how other things \u2014 like the watermelon \u2014 have changed so dramatically over the years.<\/p>\n<p>That change, as I mentioned, is due to centuries of careful breeding (which occurs in everything from fruits and vegetables to dogs and cats), designed to accentuate the best qualities of a particular item and minimize the not-so-good ones.<\/p>\n<p>Although the watermelon certainly looked quite different in the 17<sup>th<\/sup> century, the taste probably wasn\u2019t far off from its modern day variety. It was likely sweet, and the white part you see in the image above was, indeed, edible. The red part of a watermelon, which holds the seeds, is actually the watermelon\u2019s placenta. Over the years, growers have bred watermelons with more red flesh (which is also the part that\u2019s loaded with lycopene), to yield melons with more red flesh, more juice and even fewer seeds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMuseum paintings are an interesting method for studying old cultivars [varieties],\u201d said Todd Wehner, a professor at North Carolina State University who\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cuke.hort.ncsu.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">studies watermelon breeding<\/a>. \u201cThe one (in Stanchi\u2019s painting) certainly shows the sort of watermelons that Europeans had to eat in the Middle Ages during their summer harvest season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So what will watermelons look like three centuries from today? Honestly, probably not that different from the ones we enjoy today I like to think watermelons of the future will be available in various flavors like bacon, chocolate and bubble gum, but that dream is still 70 or 80 years away.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>UP NEXT: A NEW YEAR\u2019S RESOLUTION UPDATE<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The still life you see above was painted by Italian artist Giovanni Stanchi sometime between 1645 and 1672. It features a variety of fruits, including peaches, plums and pears, but take note of the odd-looking specimen in the bottom right. Yep, that\u2019s a watermelon. Or at least what a watermelon looked like 350 years ago. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,615],"class_list":{"0":"post-2032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-general","7":"tag-watermelon","8":"tag-watermelon-breeding","9":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>HOW BREEDING PRODUCED THE MODERN WATERMELON - What About Watermelon?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whataboutwatermelon.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/how-breeding-produced-the-modern-watermelon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"HOW BREEDING PRODUCED THE MODERN WATERMELON - What About Watermelon?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The still life you see above was painted by Italian artist Giovanni Stanchi sometime between 1645 and 1672. 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