Square watermelons are the fruit of human ingenuity

Square watermelons were invented by the Japanese about forty years ago. More precisely, not square, but cubic. No, they did not receive the Nobel Prize in biology for their discovery. And genetic engineering with breeding has nothing to do with it. Cunning people guessed the growing watermelon to enclose in a transparent container, so that when growing, the fruit took its shape. So you can grow not only square watermelons, but also cylindrical squash, and eggplant in the form of a tetrahedron, if such a need arises. What was the need to grow watermelons of unusual shape? Blame for all - the high cost of retail space in Japanese cities. How are these two things related? Yes, it's very simple.

Overcrowding of Japanese megacities has become the reason for the high cost of not only housing, but also any premises - manufacturing, office, shopping. Owners of shops selling vegetables and fruits had to pay high rent, and in such conditions shops had a small area to be affordable for lesser tenants. And on a small area and a lot of goods can not be placed, and watermelons of ordinary, round shape, have the ability to occupy large volumes of space precisely because of their non-compact configuration. Deliver the same watermelon every day - the occupation is not cheap: the fruit is large, its cost is low. So the Japanese farmers decided to render services to fruit traders. They took and came up with the idea how to grow watermelons of such a form that they could easily be stored, took up less space, and moreover did not roll around the counter.

Practicality and foresight of Japanese melon growers have reached the point where they grew square watermelons of such sizes that they easily fit on the shelves of Japanese refrigerators! The novelty immediately fell in taste (and in form) to the domestic Japanese consumer. And although the costs of their cultivation were slightly higher (because of the need to put them in transparent boxes), and the store price exceeded the price for conventional products by three to four times, square watermelons quickly gained popularity among the population. Many farmers from other countries began to adopt the "best practices" of the Japanese and also began to grow curly watermelons.

The farmer, who first thought of growing non-standard fruits, did not immediately think of patenting his invention, and for many years many of his inventions benefited from his ingenuity (both literally and figuratively). However, in the end he still took the patent, but how much money he lost in the past decades!

The fancy of the Japanese farmer has created a lot of imitations. Now you can order through the online store any vegetable of any shape. They say that growing vegetables in a transparent plastic container is also good because plastic protects the fetus from parasites. However, for Russia the cultivation of such exotics is not very relevant. We do not have to square up, grow ordinary watermelons in the middle band!

But, apparently, a square watermelon, the photo of which decorates many exhibitions and pages of Internet portals, is successful only in Japan and the closest countries to it. In other places, where the size of retail space in vegetable stores are all right, they decided to trade "in the old fashioned way." In addition, they say, the taste of a square watermelon is still lower than that of a round watermelon.