If it is a seedless watermelon, it would be a triploid. In Kihara's 1951
paper (Proc. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci.58:217-230) diploid (n=11) watermelons
were treated with colchicine to produce tetraploids (n=22). Crossing
diploid with tetraploid gives the seedless triploid which still needs
cross pollination by a diploid to stimulate fruit formation.
I would assume the seedy watermelons are still diploids.
David Hershey
dh321 at excite.com
Margene Ranieri wrote:
>> Does anybody know how many chromosomes the average grocery store
> watermelon posesses? Is it a tetraploid? Thanks!
>> Margene M. Ranieri, Ph.D.
> Biology Department, Box 34585,
> Bob Jones University
> Greenville, SC 29614
>mranieri at bju.edu> 864-242-5100 ext.2220
