Why China is growing exploding watermelons

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Watermelons in China are getting too big for their britches, thanks to generous amounts of growth accelerators.

How big is too big? Well, some are exploding.

The exploding melons were a mistake, produced by a farmer who misused the legal growth substance forchlorfenuron on his crop too late in the season.

But the strange and somewhat comical explosion of the watermelon crop is just one of many incidents that make health experts worried about how China is producing food.

From a story in the UK Guardian:

In the past week, the People’s Daily website has run stories of human birth control chemicals being used on cucumber plants in Xian, China Daily has reported Sichuan peppers releasing red dye in water, and the Sina news portal revealed that barite powder had been injected into chickens in Guizhou to increase their weight.More alarming still was a study by researchers at Nanjing Agricultural University that estimated a tenth of China’s rice may be tainted with the cadmium, a heavy metal that can affect the nervous system. This caused a stir when it was published earlier this year in the pioneering Caixin magazine.

The story notes that many farmers in China choose to grow their own food separate from crops produced for commercial sale.

Read the full story: “Exploding watermelons put spotlight on Chinese farming practices.”
