Seedy, not sweet: Ancient melon genome from Libya yields surprising insights into watermelon relative

Washington University in St. Louis ^ | August 1, 2022 | Talia Ogliore

[SunkenCiv]

An unexpected new insight from this study is that Citrullus appears to have initially been collected or cultivated for its seeds, not its sweet flesh, consistent with seed damage patterns induced by human teeth in the oldest Libyan material.

Image courtesy of Molecular Biology and Evolution

[KarlInOhio]

An early version of Jurassic Park featured watermelons instead of dinosaurs. It did not go over well with test audiences so they had to add CGI dinosaurs to improve the chase scenes.

[SunkenCiv]

Same thing happened during the making of the first Indiana Jones movie.

[Red Badger]

Yellow Watermelon is MY personal fav.............................

[SunkenCiv]

[blam]

Egusi Melon

[Red Badger]

Can these seeds be germinated?.......................

[blam]

Egusi Melon

[SunkenCiv]

That’s what she said.

[BenLurkin]

Interesting!

[SunkenCiv]

I tried Tigerella one year, didn’t work out. Years before I’d tried the Galia and a couple of supposedly tasty French melons, bupkis. OTOH, back when I was younger and fitter, I successfully grew Black Diamond, and in a different year Moon & Stars (or maybe it was yellow fleshed Moon & Stars).

[Red Badger]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citron_melon

I mistook one of these for a watermelon once...................

[blam]

" Years before I’d tried the Galia and a couple of supposedly tasty French melons, bupkis. OTOH, back when I was younger and fitter, I successfully grew Black Diamond, and in a different year Moon & Stars (or maybe it was yellow fleshed Moon & Stars)."

In the 1950's my dad grew a Black Diamond watermelon that won the regional large watermelon prize that year. Congressman Frank Boykin took it and claims to have given the watermelon to president Truman.

This is one of the ways I earned money as a teenager.(That's a familiar scene to me, even today around here)

[Jewbacca]

The version with killer tomatoes, however, did well.

[Jewbacca]

I’ve got a volunteer crop of Indian jewel corn growing on our little farm (vineyard) in Israel. My daughters planted a crop years ago and then grew up and abandoned it when they went to college.

Beautiful but just tastes like corn. Probably deemed an invasive species in Israel but I’m going to leave it alone. Bugs don’t bother it.

Slowly spreading down a gully.

[gnarledmaw]

I would question how unexpected this really was as its similar to the story of the squash. When we encountered it, it seemed obvious that those primitives were doing it all wrong. The selections seemed to be for seeds so we improved it until it had a much higher ratio of flesh. Subsequently it was discovered that the intent of a squash was a protein storage device, not a fruit based sugar storage system.

[SunkenCiv]

I’ve seen the ears, they’re gorgeous, but I think that’s probably a flint corn.

[Sirius Lee]

Seedy, not sweet: The Joe Biden Story.

[SunkenCiv]

:^) It’s a variety better suited for the south, melons in general do better with a longer growing season. This year we’re having a great year for field corn, rains a couple of times a week, blazing hot other days. You could almost build treehouses in these things.

[SunkenCiv]

The primitives are the ones who wildcrafted it into both. :^)