A watermelon cultivar developed at the now closed LSU AgCenter Calhoun Research Station has been nominated for boarding onto the Slow Food Ark of Taste.
The Red-N-Sweet is a 1987 LSU release. Its disease resistance, dark red flesh and intense sweetness made it a regionally popular watermelon until the late 1990s, according to AgCenter horticulture agent Kerry Heafner. Then, it seemed to disappear. Until recently, all five watermelons released from the Calhoun Station were presumed functionally extinct.
In February of 2020, Heafner, who currently serves on Slow Food Ark of Taste Southeast Region Nominating Committee, was given some seeds by Lula Shurtleff of Marion, Louisiana. She believed the seeds to be of one of the Calhoun watermelons. Heafner said they turned out to be seeds of Red-N-Sweet and thus began the melon’s journey back into circulation.
“I cannot tell you how many people have either come into the office or called in asking where they can get seeds of these Calhoun melons,” Heafner said. “I’ve always had to tell them I didn’t know. Now, I can gladly tell them we have those seeds.”
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