How do they make seedless watermelons?
According to the University of Florida IFAS Extension website (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/MV152), seedless watermelons were produced by a Japanese scientist in 1950. He took normal watermelons and treated the seedlings with colchicine which produced a new plant having 44 chromosomes instead of the normal 22 chromosones per cell in the melons. When he crossed the 44 chromosome tetraploid with the 22 chromosome diploid, a sterile triploid with 33 chromosomes was produced which when pollinated by a normal plant produced a sterile seedless watermelon.
According to the University of Florida IFAS Extension website (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/MV152…), seedless watermelons were produced by a Japanese scientist in 1950. He took normal watermelons and treated the seedlings with colchicine which produced a new plant having 44 chromosomes instead of the normal 22 chromosones per cell in the melons. When he crossed the 44 chromosome tetraploid with the 22 chromosome diploid, a sterile triploid with 33 chromosomes was produced which when pollinated by a normal plant produced a sterile seedless watermelon.
