Seeds and seedlings to produce hybrid watermelon plants that would be seedless. See description for explanation of the biology.
Seedless watermelon plants are grown from seeds. Two different strains of the plant - one diploid and one tetraploid- are crossed. The offspring triploid plants are sterile so meiosis can not occur and no mature seeds are produced. But in order for the triploid plant to produce fruit it must be pollinated by a normal diploid plant. The seeds shown are triploid (the red coated one) and the diploid pollinator (green coated). The seeds are color coated so the farmer can be sure to plant rows of pollinators between rows of triploid plants. The two must be grown near each other so that pollination will occur and the triploid plant will produce seedless fruit.
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Photo credit: © Martin Shields / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: agriculture, botany, breeding, citrullus, coated, cross, cross-breeding, diploid, experiment, female, gender, genders, genetics, hybrid, hybridization, lanatus, male, modern, monoecious, plant, polyploidy, process, reproduction, seed, seedless, seedlings, seeds, strains, technique, triploid, varieties, watermelon
