Watermelon History

Spotted throughout Louisiana and parishes where well-drained, sandy, loamy soil permits maximum growth from early summer into the late fall season, beautiful watermelons can be found. The ripe green melons roll to the market at fruit stand supermarkets. More often than not, they are sold directly to the consumer from the back of a farmer’s pick-up truck parked in the shade of a tree on some roadside. 

In a market that depends on seasonal consumption, competition can become intense. In 1988, production from 250 acres was $200,000, down from the 1985 production of $400,000 due to the weather conditions. Sugartown melons are grown amid the Piney Woods of Beauregard Parish. They have become a special treat for travelers. Sugartown melon signs have appeared from the Gulf of Mexico to Shreveport as the popularity of these melons has continue to increase. They have become so popular in fact that counterfeit melons are sold worldwide. 

While melons often are shipped in from Texas, one of the three largest producers in the United States, the demand for local melons is high in Louisiana with each area favoring its own homegrown variety.

Watermelon was naturalized in the Middle East and in Russia long before recorded history. The Moor’s took Watermelon to southern Europe after the fall of the Roman empire, and European colonist intern brought it to the western hemisphere and the Pacific Islands. The Chinese began to cultivate the fruit in perhaps the 10th century A.D. Watermelons grow wild in Africa, and many historians believe the seeds were brought to America by slaves who would carry little else from their native land. Often times the seeds being braided into their hair.

Scattered across Louisiana, watermelon growth is sporadic. While soil conditions in one parish might be perfectly suited to melon cultivation, nearby parishes might have an entirely different, completely unsuitable type of soil. 

According to LSU Cooperative Extension Service horticulturist Mike Cannon, there are two predominant varieties ground state wide. The Jubilee, a long striped melon and represents about 75% of the melons grown in Louisiana. With about 15% being the Charleston Gray, a long light green variety. Some growers like the Royal Sweet, a hybrid which is smaller than the Jubilee but gives good production and is resistant to disease. Each grower has his favorite and there are many varieties that do well. The LSU Co-op strives to develop melons that combine good tasting with optimum disease resistance.

It’s usually the region of a watermelons origin rather than its particular variety, however, that captures the attention and eventually the affection of the public. In the 1950s for instance, one gentleman farmer drove his familiar watermelon laden truck through the Kisatchie woods and on through villages like Provencal and Coldwater to Natchitoches for an afternoon of visiting and selling.  He was the proud bearer of locally beloved Saline’s. Untold varieties of melons, however, were called Saline’s by untold numbers of farmers in those days, all named in honor of the Bienville parish railroad town of Saline. Saline was a prime shipping point for Louisiana melons heading north to Yankee wholesalers. Likewise, any variety grown in Sugartown soil today becomes a Sugartown melon, with all the rights and privileges there to appertaining. Any melon grown within 50 miles of the original Sugartown are considered Sugartown melons.

Sugartown, now little more than a country crossroads in Beauregard parish, was one of the oldest settlements in the original Calcasieu Parish, and the town takes its greatest pride in the watermelons grown there. 

For many years four men, Winfred Moses, Burl Boggs, Milford Lacy and WL Lewis have been recognized as the largest producers of Sugartown melons and are considered the local melon experts. 

Winfred had grown Watermelon‘s most of his life, and in fact he was one of the original farmers who several years back organized a co-op to assist all the growers in selling their crops. For a while it worked pretty well.  Seals were printed passed out to local farmers to assure buyers that they were getting a genuine Sugartown melon. It wasn’t long though until the seals were copied and obtained by outside growers. Pretty soon they were showing up on melons all over, even in Texas.

Winford and Burl worked together to produce a white melon. Named because of its almost white rein color which they believe ships better than the other melons because of a tougher rind, does not sunburn as badly as some varieties, has a fine texture, tender meat and produces many melons per vine. 

Developing a new variety of melon that will produce consistent seed is not a simple matter. After finding a “freak” watermelon growing in one of their fields, Winfred & Burl decided to save the seed. They began planting those unusual white melon seeds in an isolated field to avoid cross pollination with other watermelons. It took seven years of repeated planting and during this time they had some really strange looking vines of melons. Finally, in 1962, the melons were consistent in size and color for the men to consider the seed pure enough to send to the LSU Experimental station at Monroe. After they raised three crops in Monroe, the seed was certified and returned to Winford Moses & Burl Boggs. The Sugartown Whites average about 35 pounds but can be grown as large as 60 pounds and the meat is dark red and very sweet.

Like all the melon farmers, they believed that when you say Sugartown melons, it means the best and something that’s not found anywhere else.

Milford Lacey and his 17-year-old son Lloyd represented the third and fourth generations of the Lacey family to grow and sell Sugartown Watermelons. They operated their little family farm at Sugartown crossroads. Grandpa Lacey and other settlers around the area first raised watermelons for home use. Then the area farmers began to plant their crops all at different times and trade them for other goods.  Also, they would have melons all through the summer. Some people that didn’t grow melons would trade chickens or other things for Sugartown Watermelons. Gradually, as people would come out from town to buy them, the farmers begin to grow them to sell.

Sugartown can raise almost any variety of melon but most farmers like the Jubilee or the Charleston Gray. They are hearty melons and ship well. One problem that growers often encounter is that there isn’t much new ground left for planting. New ground is ground that has been left fallow for at least five years then cleared again for melons.

WL Lewis of Sugartown raised several hundred acres of melons each year. He says unlike most crops that are harvested with machinery, watermelons have to be picked and moved by hand. Each melon is 50 pounds or more, and that can get pretty heavy by the end of the day.

Most early summer mornings pickers and trucks arrive early at the watermelon field to begin a days work. Each melon is hand-pulled from the vine and tossed to a waiting man on the back of a truck or trailer. That man catches and carefully places each one before turning to catch the next one up. “Sometimes he misses”, says W.L. with a laugh, “but not too often. That watermelon is heavy and it can knock a man down if he isn’t ready for it”.

Sometimes unexpected dangers away in the watermelon patch. Winford Moses recalled crossing paths with an occasional snake but he says the snakes are not as big a problem as black widow spiders. In some fields there is a spider under every melon and they can be just as deadly as a rattlesnake.

And there are other problems lurking in the watermelon patch. Varmints it seems like watermelon just as much as their two-legged adversaries and these critters of the wild or equally determined to have their share of this delicious treat. Crows, deer, and coyotes are the biggest nuisances and some farmers say they can ruin a field in one night. Crows will peck every melon insight and then the deer will come in and finish them off. But they are not the only ones, raccoons, skunks, possums, wolves, anything around will eat watermelon. A raccoon will come in and open up a small hole and pull all the meat out and leave the rind intact. You don’t know the melons are ruined until you pick it up.

One farmer says that a kid stealing an occasional Watermelon is the least of their worries. He remembers working at field one day when a neighbor came up with an old fellow and said the gentleman had gotten stuck and needed a tractor to get him out. He got on his tractor and went with them to help out this old fellow. Turned out he had gotten stuck in one of the famers fields and his truck was loaded with stolen watermelons. 

In the good old summertime, Watermelons usually mean fun, food and festivals. In Beauregard Parish, the Sugartown Watermelon Festival was born in 1966 in Sugartown, LA. This festival was a way to let the community celebrate the watermelon season. This festival is great for the community and parish. It brings people together in his good for the economy.

Farmers would all bring in their largest watermelon to be judged. Some serious contenders bring Jubilees, Charleston Grays, Black Diamonds and Cobb Jim’s Caroline across royal sweet cream some sweets Louisiana queens and Minnie lesser-known varieties. Each has certain qualities and characteristics for which it is recognize, but individual growers have their own closely guarded secret for producing the best melon possible from their own favorite variety.

The melons are judged for size, uniformity, sweetness, color and taste. There are round melons, long melons, yellow meated melons and even a story about some fellow who produced a square melon so it would fit into a refrigerator better.

In Beauregard Parish the year might just as easily be 1966 as a crowd gathers, children make mischief, political candidate shake hands and make speeches, the bandstand provides background music and men gather in small and large groups to discuss crops, weather and politics. Women tour the craft vendors and contestants sign up for the seed spitting and watermelon eating contests.

As the competitions get underway at the pavilion located in the center of the festival, space is cleared for the contestants signed up for the seed spitting contest as one after another steps back, puckers up and spits. The seeds fly, the spectators chuckle, and losers good naturedly laugh at themselves as their mighty efforts bounce only a few feet. 

Cleanliness may be next to godliness but it’s definitely not a part of the watermelon eating contest. Dozens of diminutive contestants simultaneously sink faces into melons and go to work. With the encouragement of spectators, the watermelons rapidly disappear until at last a happy winner is chosen and the losers go off with moms to be cleaned up and await further adventures.   

Where ever there are watermelons there is usually a discussion of “how to tell a ripe watermelon”. Everyone has his own method, some work and some don’t. One thing for sure they all agree you can always be sure when you cut the melon.

There’s thumping, watching the curl or gauging the color change, and some even say they can do it by balancing a straw on the top of the melon. Almost all growers say they can tell by the color of the melon. It gets darker, the shine fades and it will look dull if it’s ripe. It is said a trained eye can see that. A few, however, hold out for the little curl that grows beside the stem. When it turns brown, the melon is ripe. 

Of course, it’s the thumpers who are most often seen at the local fruit stands trying to decide which melon to buy. An experienced thumper knows the “expert way” is to place a hand against the melon and then thump with the other hand, feeling the vibrations of a ripe melon. An amateur can be quickly spotted using only forefinger and thumb. Some say that’s not thumping, says the more experienced thumpers, they say that’s flumping. 

There’s no such thing as a watermelon stand proprietor who isn’t an interesting character. You take Charlie Smith. Charlie didn’t grow watermelons, he just brought them to the customers. He sets up shop from the back of his old pickup truck which he parks at the intersection of well-traveled country roads. He would just move with the shade to sell his watermelons and play his guitar to keep him company. 

Additional Information to be added….

With the winter almost gone, March is an ideal time to prepare your summer vegetable garden.  Louisiana-grown melons generally are mature at the earliest in June with our warm climates. You can direct-sow seeds outdoors, but wait until the soil temperature warms to at least 70 degrees to avoid poor germination. 

Watermelons are a tender crop and should not be planted until danger of frost has passed. The use of mulch and drip irrigation are recommended. The mulch helps to protect the fruit from rotting, control weeds and promote early fruit production.  Watermelons have male and female flowers and require bees for pollination. Delay spraying of insecticides on watermelons until late afternoon or early evening after the bees have left the field and returned to the hive. 

Spraying a fungicide every 10 to 14 days starting when the vines begin to flower and set fruit until harvest will ensure healthy foliage. Treating for cucumber beetles and worms when you first identify them is the key to controlling these pest.  Seeds/Transplant Planting from seed in a greenhouse in late February to early March 4 to 6 weeks before transplanting is a great practice. Put the transplants in your garden.  

Planting South Louisiana dates for planting are from March 1 to July 5 Watermelons prefer soil pH of 6.5 Grow the vines in raised rows known as hills and ensure good drainage. Hills will hold the sun’s heat longer. Space the plants about 2 feet apart in a 5-foot-wide hill. Watermelons like loamy, well-drained soil. 

After you transplant, cover the plants with row covers to keep pests at bay. Remove row covers when you see both male and female flowers on the vine. Fertilization For preplant use 4-5 pounds of 8-24-24 or 13-13-13 per 100 feet row.  Sidedress melons three to four weeks after planting when the vines begin to run with 1-2 pounds of ammonium nitrate or 2-4 pounds of calcium nitrate per 100 feet of row. If your rows aren’t 100 feet long, adjust the amount you apply to each row.  

 Common Problems Foliar Diseases Cucumber Beetles Worms Pre-emergence Weed Management Apply Sinbar 80 WP at 2-4 oz. to control broadleaf weeds. Apply before crop or weeds emerge or apply before transplanting. Can be applied under plastic or to row middles. 

Also, you can apply it over plastic mulch before punching holes. However a ½-inch rain is required to wash off Sinbar before holes are punched or plants are transplanted.  Post emergence Weed Management After planting apply Roundup Weatherman at 11-22 to control pigweed. Apply 41% of Roundup when pigweed emerges.

 Apply to row or middles only using a hooded sprayer or wiper applicator. Don’t spray directly on the watermelon.  After watermelons have 2-3 leaves, apply Treflan HFP, direct spray to row middles and/or beneath plants at the true leaf stage.

https://www.lsuagcenter.com/portals/our_offices/parishes/st%20helena/news/watermelon-production-louisiana-zone-8

 There are 270 growers, producing 2,600 acres of watermelons in Louisiana. 

Watermelons are produced in 25 parishes.