Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey Brainstuff
Speaker 1: learned Boga bom Here. A whole watermelon holds a lot
Speaker 1: of promise. It's stiff rind contains so many slices of
Speaker 1: juicy jewel, bright fruit, fresh flavored and sweet. But it
Speaker 1: also contains the potential to begin to split, hiss and
Speaker 1: foam and then go bluey, spurting, putred melon guts all
Speaker 1: over your picnic. We're not talking about exploding a watermelon
Speaker 1: on purpose using the potential energy of stretched rubber bands
Speaker 1: squeezing around it. It's possible for watermelons to explode all
Speaker 1: on their own or almost because of either genetic factors
Speaker 1: or spontaneous fermentation that creates a build up of gases
Speaker 1: and pressure inside the rind until it bursts, often dramatically.
Speaker 1: For the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: Spoke with Walter Reeves, a k A. The Georgia Gardener,
Speaker 1: a retired radio until vision host, author and weekly gardening
Speaker 1: columnist for our local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal Constitution. He
Speaker 1: explained fermentation explosions happen because the watermelon is full of
Speaker 1: sugar and a fast growing bacteria or fungus got in
Speaker 1: there somehow and is fermenting. Maybe it got poked by
Speaker 1: something on the trip home, or maybe it had an
Speaker 1: unnoticed blotched disease infection. Basically, some types of the microorganisms
Speaker 1: like bacteria and yeasts that live all around us in
Speaker 1: our air can eat sugars and poops stuff like ethanol
Speaker 1: and carbon dioxide. A reef said, a fermentation causes many
Speaker 1: different chemicals to be produced. Some smell of alcohol, some
Speaker 1: smell of vinegar, some are floral. Fermentation produces carbon dioxide gas,
Speaker 1: which hisses as it comes out of the rind under
Speaker 1: slight pressure. So the simple answer is that a watermelon
Speaker 1: can ferment inside, and the pressure can cause various effects,
Speaker 1: I think, anywhere from the phizzes like crazy sound that
Speaker 1: a soda makes when you shake up the can before
Speaker 1: you open it, all the way to a mini volcanic
Speaker 1: explosion of what Reeves called an ouy, gooey, salimy, yucky
Speaker 1: puddle of crapola. A watermelons thick rind usually protects against
Speaker 1: this fermenting microorganisms have to have a way to get in.
Speaker 1: Maybe the rind was pierced or scratched or weakened with
Speaker 1: a bacterial infection. Reeves explained a bacterial blotch disease comes
Speaker 1: from infected seed and only affects the rind. It doesn't
Speaker 1: spread to the interior, but if the blotch cracks, other
Speaker 1: bacteria and fungi can go through the cracks to the
Speaker 1: interior of the fruit and begin fermentation. If you find
Speaker 1: an infected watermelon with only a small blotch on the rind,
Speaker 1: the interior should be fine, but if the interior smells
Speaker 1: bad or seems watery, don't eat it. Good advice all around.
Speaker 1: But we also mentioned genetics as explained, exploding can be
Speaker 1: caused by genetic factors that influence rind thickness, sugary pulp,
Speaker 1: and small fruit size. A thin rind plus super sweet pulp,
Speaker 1: which readily absorbs water equals boom on a hot day.
Speaker 1: It turns out that there's an explosive rind gene that's
Speaker 1: found in many heirloom varieties. Its heritability was identified back
Speaker 1: in Basically, it causes the fruits rind to burst or
Speaker 1: split when it's cut. How stuff works. Also spoke with
Speaker 1: Dr Penelope Perkins, vs, a plant physiologist and professor of
Speaker 1: horticulture at North Carolina State University. She said, so a
Speaker 1: little bump will pop the rind open, and the tiger
Speaker 1: pressure in the fruit pushes flesh far and wide. But
Speaker 1: this raises a question. If we've known about this explosive
Speaker 1: rind gene and can breed it out of watermelons, why
Speaker 1: haven't we gotten rid of it? It turns out it's
Speaker 1: useful after all. Okay, let's back up a step. In
Speaker 1: order to grow a watermelon, the flower of a watermelon
Speaker 1: plant has to get pollinated, and in order to grow
Speaker 1: a desirable seedless watermelon, that plant has to get pollinated
Speaker 1: with pollen from a seeded watermelon plant. So farmers have
Speaker 1: to have both kinds of plants flowering, But they don't
Speaker 1: want to waste resources actually growing the often less desirable
Speaker 1: seeded watermelons. So if they breed their seeded plants to
Speaker 1: include that explosive rind gene, the problem kind of takes
Speaker 1: care of itself. The melons from these plants either explode
Speaker 1: on their own or are easily squished and destroyed. Farmers
Speaker 1: even breed them to be small, fruited enough, like palm sized,
Speaker 1: so that they won't explode all over the seedless fruit
Speaker 1: and make a mess. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article when bad Watermelons Explode on good People on how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, written by Kerrie tach Row. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of I heart Radio in partnership with
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com, and it is produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
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