Saturday, June 16, 2007

Golden Crown

On the way to the memorial yesterday, I saw a fruit stand selling yellow rind watermelons. As I have never seen this before, I had to do some research.

Golden Crown was bred for watermelon lovers and improved for earliness (about 70-80 days from sowing). It has good tolerance to powdery mildew, anthracnose, and viruses, which lengthens the life of the vines and increases potential yield. Four or more fruit per plant is very common. The golden-yellow rind signals that this juicy red watermelon is ready for harvest. The mature fruit is uniform, oblong, icebox-sized, weighing about 2.5kg, and with brilliant red flesh containing small seeds. Golden Crown is a delicious sweet watermelon with approximately 12% sugar content. A very thin but tough rind allows good shipping. Green spots may appear on the rind if grown under low light intensity or poor management after flowering.

Apparently there are also yellow fleshed watermelons. Clearly my watermelon palette has been limited all these years.

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