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.