Square watermelons were invented by the Japanese forty years ago. More precisely, not square, but cubic. No, they did not receive the Nobel Prize in Biology for their discovery. And genetic engineering with selection has nothing to do with it. The tricksters guessed to enclose the growing watermelon in a transparent container, so that, growing, the fruit would take its shape. In this way, you can grow not only square watermelons, but also cylindrical zucchini, and tetrahedral eggplants, if such a need arises.
What was the need to grow unusually shaped watermelons? The fault is the high cost of retail space in Japanese cities. How are these two things related? Yes, very simple.
Overcrowding in Japanese cities has caused the high cost of not only housing, but also any premises - industrial, office, retail. The owners of shops selling vegetables and fruits were forced to pay high rents, and inin such conditions, the shops had a small area to be affordable for poor tenants. And you can’t place a lot of goods in a small area, and watermelons of a regular, round shape tend to occupy large amounts of space precisely because of their non-compact configuration. To import watermelons every day is not a cheap occupation: the fruit is large, its cost is low. So Japanese farmers decided to provide a service to fruit merchants.
They took and figured out how to grow watermelons in such a shape that they can be easily stored, take up less space, and even not roll around the counter.
The practicality and foresight of Japanese melon growers went so far that they grew square watermelons of such dimensions that they easily fit on the shelves of Japanese refrigerators! The novelty immediately fell in love (and in form) with the domestic Japanese consumer. And although the cost of growing them was somewhat higher (due to the need to place them in transparent boxes), and the store price was three to four times higher than the price of ordinary products, square watermelons quickly gained popularity among the population. Many farmers from other countries began to adopt the "best practices" of the Japanese and also began to grow curly watermelons.
The farmer, who first came up with the idea of growing non-standard fruits, did not immediately think of patenting his invention, and for many years the fruits (both literally and figuratively) of his ingenuity were used by many. True, in the end he did take out a patent, but how much money has he lost over the past decades!
The invention of a Japanese farmer has given rise to a lot of imitations. Now you can order any vegetable of any shape through the online store. They say that growing vegetables in a transparent plastic container is also good because the plastic protects the fruit from parasites. However, for Russia, the cultivation of such exotics is not very relevant. We have no time to breed square ones, we would grow ordinary watermelons in the middle lane!
But, apparently, the square watermelon, whose photos adorn many exhibitions and pages of Internet portals, is a success only in Japan and the countries closest to it. In other places, where everything is in order with the size of retail space in vegetable shops, they decided to trade “the old fashioned way”. In addition, they say that the taste of a square watermelon is still lower than that of a round one.
