Have you ever seen this kind of watermelon?

Many kinds of functional watermelons which are smaller and colorful, have been introduced one after another.

Mini watermelons are seen dangling on the branches.

They are one-fifth of the size of normal watermelons.

Normal watermelons are grown on land but the mini watermelons are being grown by a scaffolding cultivation method.

They are small enough to be peeled with a knife but have a higher sugar content and a shorter cultivation period.

There are fully ripe yellow watermelons which look very delicious.

The dark stripes on the surface is a distinct feature of normal watermelons but the yellow mini-watermelons do not have them.

In order to satisfy consumers demand, the research and development of various functional watermelons is in progress in the country.

The R&D projects also include efforts to develop technologies to increase the volume of crops, on top of those for producing mini-sized or colorful watermelons.