Low-Sugar Watermelons Bred by Agriculture Dept.

WASHINGTON — Turning the centuries-long search for sweeter and sweeter watermelons on its head, Department of Agriculture plant breeders have developed a low-sugar variety.

The new melons are green on the outside and red on the inside but contain less than half as much sugar as conventional varieties.

Agricultural Research Service (enlarge photo) Sprinkle on some artificial sweetener and this low-sugar watermelon, developed for diabetics, tastes fine, say U.S. Department of Agriculture plant breeders.

The department's Agricultural Research Service believes the new melons will be welcomed by America's 21 million diabetics.

"A little artificial sweetener can be sprinkled onto the fruit to give it a flavor that's comparable to conventional watermelons," said Erin Peabody, a spokesperson for the Agricultural Research Service.

Speaking for the American Dietetic Association, Dr. Christine Gerbstadt questioned the need for low-sugar fruit.

Dr. Gerbstadt, a physician and registered dietitian, said she encourages diabetic patients to eat melon and other fresh fruit, "as long as it's in controlled portions."

"Fresh fruit is not a particularly expensive fruit, in terms of raising blood sugar," she noted.

But even the possibility that a low-sugar watermelon might find a niche market appears to be a sign of the times.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 20.8 million Americans had diabetes in 2005 – about one-third of them undiagnosed.

And the incidence of the disease is growing rapidly. The CDC said the 2005 figure represented an increase of 14 percent in only three years.

Although watermelon contains lower sugar concentrations than many other fruits – less than half as much as a banana, for example – it often is eaten in much larger servings.

The Agriculture Department is sharing the low sugar variety with commercial growers, but nobody knows how the farmers will respond, given the fact that the drive to develop ever-sweeter watermelons has been going on for centuries.

Even the names of new varieties seem to compete for sweetness, names like "Sugar Slice, Sugar Heart, Sugar Baby, Sweet Scarlet and Sweet Sugar."

That wasn't always the case. In the 1800s, popular varieties included "Arkansas Traveler" and "Georgia Rattlesnake."

In fact, an Alabama watermelon grower named W. A. Kleckley is said by experts to have crossed "Arkansas Traveler" with a variety called "Boss" in the 1880s to come up with one of the first sweet-name varieties, "Kleckley's Sweet."

Today the four largest watermelon-growing states are Florida, which produces 20 percent of the nation's crop; Texas, 17 percent; California, 16 percent ; and Georgia, 13 percent, according to the Agriculture Department.

Searching for a way to turn back the watermelon sugar clock, plant breeder Angela Davis of the Agriculture Department's research laboratory in Lane, Okla., found that red flesh and sugary taste seem to go hand-in-hand.

Eventually, she found a low-sugar variety with golden flesh and used it as the genetic foundation to gradually come up with a variety that has crimson flesh and less than 50 percent the sugar content of most commercial varieties.

The new melon retains the fruit's rich concentrations of vitamin A, potassium and the powerful antioxidant lycopene, said Agricultural Research Services spokesperson Peabody.