This Exists: Chinese Farmers Battling ‘Exploding Watermelons’

Be careful if you pick up a Chinese-grown watermelon this summer. The BBC reports farmers in eastern China have a bizarre problem: their watermelons keep exploding. “Farmer Liu Mingsuo told the Xinhua news agency that more than two-thirds of his crop had blown up,” explains the BBC.

Watermelons (at least those that have not been filled with explosives by local fire departments in an effort to dramatize the dangers of fireworks) do not tend to explode. But in China, state-run media’s reporting acres and acres of melon meeting their fate in sudden detonations. “Growth chemicals” have become prime suspects in the strange situation, except for the fact that melons untreated by chemicals are also, basically, blowing up:

The overuse of a chemical that helps fruit grow faster was blamed in one report by China Central Television.

But agriculture experts were unable to explain why chemical-free melons were exploding. They cited the weather and abnormal size of the melon as factors.

China Central Television said farmers were overspraying their crops with the growth promoter, hoping they could get their fruit to market ahead of the peak season and increase their profits.

According to the Xinhua news agency, 20 farmers in a village in Jiangsu province planted imported seeds from Japan, with 10 households saying their watermelons began exploding last month.

Watch the story here, from the BBC:

(h/t The Blaze)

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