When it comes to watermelons, variety is the 'slice' of life

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Watermelons are among the top fourteen agricultural crops in South Carolina and are grown in the southern part of the state. Boy, how they’ve changed. Most people today want seedless watermelons and breeders are developing new ones yearly, now melons come yellow or orange, too. Watermelons are susceptible to soil borne diseases and nematodes. Right here in South Carolina, Clemson and US Dept. of Ag researchers at the Charleston Vegetable Laboratory, worked to find resistant rootstocks that commercially profitable varieties could be grafted onto. That shows the importance of that vegetable (watermelons are in the cucurbit cucumber family) to our state and the country.