August 8 2008, 11:01

Yellow watermelons to be sold in Moscow

Unusual watermelons appeared on the Moscow markets. A newcomer differs from its red namesake by bright yellow pulp and absence of stones. To be more precise, there are stones but they more look like pumpkin's. And to taste "yellow one" resembles more pumpkin than watermelon.

These melons are shipped from Spain and sold mainly at large supermarkets of Moscow at $11.7/kg. The cost of one normal watermelon is $41.8.

According to the sellers, demand for yellow melon is quite high because its price is lower than for square watermelon. But many people after testing once do not buy yellow watermelons again because they do not like pumpkin taste of this exotic fruit.

At that, the Astrakhan Institute of irrigated melons and vegetables cultivation selected yellow watermelons several years ago. This variety was called "Lunar". They promised to bring their products to the capital. But they have not done it yet

"None Moscow trading network has addressed to us", - Sergey Sokolov, the author of the selected variety, the head of the department of melons selection of Astrakhan Institute, told to KP, "for some reason everybody prefers to import these watermelons from Spain".

Besides, there were no complaints for yellow watermelons to the Moscow Agency for Health and Consumer Rights (Rospotrebnadzor). Maybe because people buy this product rarely.

Yellow watermelon is "pure-blooded". It was not crossbred, for example, with lemon. The color was changed in the result of many experiments with seeds of wild watermelon, pulp of which is really yellow.