Antarctica gets ‘taste of summer’ as watermelons grow in frigid cold. Here’s how

How do you grow watermelons in a place with nothing we’d recognize as a summer?

Researchers at Russia’s year-round Vostok Station worked it out, producing eight watermelons weighing about 2 pounds each, a translated statement by the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute said.

And in this case, researchers in July got to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

“Naturally, all polar explorers were glad to remember the taste of summer,” Andrei Teplyakov, lead geophysicist of the AARI, told the Russian Geographical Society.

The watermelons were grown in a greenhouse at the Pole of Cold, classified as the coldest place on Earth, where temperatures reach as low as -128 degrees Fahrenheit, Live Science reported.

First, researchers had to increase the humidity and air temperature in the greenhouse for the finicky plants, the AARI paper said.

They picked two varieties of early-ripening watermelons to plant because they would be better able to adapt to the low atmospheric pressure and reduced oxygen in the polar greenhouse, the paper said.

Researchers planted the watermelon seeds in a thin layer of soil substitute and set up special lighting to mimic sunlight. Since there are no bees in Antarctica, researchers had to pollinate the plants by hand.

But it’s not the first time watermelons have been grown in Antarctica, Live Science said. Korean researchers grew them at the less-chilly King Sejong Station in West Antarctica in 2021.

Russian researchers, who have previously grown dill, basil, parsley and cabbage at their station, hope to next grow blackberries, blueberries and strawberries, the paper said.

Google Translate was used to translate the papers from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute and Russian Geographical Society.