Can orange be the new red?

Watermelons — the very word invokes ideas of 'big' and 'red'. However, with a new seedless variant on the anvil, your favourite summer fruit could be in a different avatar.

- RONNIE KURIAKOSE

FOR parched throats that navigate the city streets in this scorching summer heat, no sight is perhaps as heartening as a heap of watermelons. Beside it, you can almost always find someone selling cups of that ruby-red drink that is as nourishing as it is refreshing.

Indeed, watermelon, which is packed with water (92 per cent) and essential nutrients, instantly cools the body and replenishes lost energy, making it a summer necessity and a favourite of many. If one has to nitpick a flaw in what is otherwise 'nature's sweet response to summer', it's those irritable black seeds that litter the fruit's flesh. A lot of science has been devoted to eliminating it — i.e. making watermelon variants that can make do without the seeds inside. The work at Kerala Agriculture University in Vellanikkara, Thrissur, has been no different. But they have done one better.