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Paying homage to the watermelon

Aug 03, 2017

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August 3 is National Watermelon Day

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

August 3 is celebrated as National Watermelon Day – a time to celebrate the sweet and delicious summer treat.

But before we continue, there’s one question that needs to be answered:

Is watermelon a fruit or a vegetable?

According to the National Watermelon Promotion Board, based in Orlando, Fla., it can be both.

“Watermelon can be considered a fruit or a vegetable,” the Watermelon Board says on its FAQ page. “Like the pepper, tomato and pumpkin, watermelon is a fruit, botanically.”

But watermelons also belong to the cucurbitaceae plant family of gourds and are related to cucumbers and squash.

With that background in mind, where does most of the watermelon in local grocery stores come from?

Canada

Canadian farmers harvested 1,391 acres of watermelon in 2011, according to Statistics Canada. That production equated to 19,902 tons of watermelon and a farm gate value of more than $7 million.

Ontario is Canada’s leading watermelon-producing province, accounting for about 1,200 of the national acres.

Ontario’s watermelon industry also contributed more than $6 million to the country’s total farm gate value for the product.

United States

American farmers harvested more than 113,000 acres of watermelons in 2016, according to the USDA’s 2016 Vegetable Summary.

The total value of American watermelons in 2016 was more than $579 million.

The top watermelon producing states in the U.S. are Florida, Georgia, California, Texas and Indiana.

Top 5

The top five watermelon producing countries, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, are:

Rank	Country	Metric Tonnes	% of World Total
1	China	72,943,838	66.7
2	Iran	3,947,057	3.61
3	Turkey	3,887,324	3.55
4	Brazil	2,163,501	1.97
5	Egypt	1,894,738	1.7

Record-holding watermelons

Here are some Guinness world records related to watermelons.

The heaviest watermelon weighed 350.5 pounds (159 kilograms). Chris Kent from Sevierville, Tenn. grew the fruit in 2013.

And the record for the most watermelons on a single plant is 131. The record belongs to the China’s Stanley Agricultural Group and Zhengzhou Zhengyan Seed Technology Company.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.