Watermelon is one of the best fruits recommended for people who want to lose weight; and with the high rate of overweight or obesity, and numerous other health benefits that watermelon offers the body, the demand for watermelon has skyrocketed over the years.
Starting a watermelon growing business can produce massive profits, as three lots of watermelon fruit can be grown and harvested in one year. For this article, I will discuss why you should invest in watermelon farming, and how you can start your own watermelon farm in a short time.
4 Reasons why you should invest in the watermelon business
- High rotation: A watermelon takes eighty-five days to mature from the date of planting. This means that you can have three sets of harvested watermelon fruit for sale within a year and if you started the business on a large plot of land, then you are sure to get great returns on your investment.
- There is a ready market for your product: Watermelon also contains some enzymes that help fight the cancer cells in the body, so there will always be a great demand for watermelon.
- Watermelon is resistant to pests: This means that the watermelon plant is resistant to the pests and diseases that usually affect plants; you will not have to spend a lot of money on greeting the pests that affect watermelon.
- Very Easy to Start: As long as you have the necessary land space for cultivation, you do not need many other things to start your watermelon business; you do not need much technical knowledge to manage a watermelon farm.
3 Things you need to start a watermelon business
- Large area of land: Each watermelon plant is called a vine; and the vines spread out as they mature and need space for the plant to bear larger fruit. I will talk more about the space needed for a watermelon plant to grow well.
- Sunlight: A watermelon plant requires sunlight to grow well. Therefore, the earth’s space must be in a place where there is enough sunlight to nourish the plants.
- Good seedling: The type of seedling you use will affect the yield or quality of the watermelon fruits your plants will produce. There are many different varieties of watermelon species, you must choose the variety you want and continue researching how to handle the growing process before embarking on it.
Starting a Watermelon Farm Business
1. Get Your Land Space:
I mentioned earlier that it takes a lot of land to successfully run your watermelon farm. The first step is to find the land needed for cultivation in a place where the watermelon plants can receive six to eight hours of sunlight per day.
2. Seedling Source:
The next step is to find a healthy watermelon seedling. Farmers who already have their own watermelon growers can supply you with healthy seeds to use on your own farm.
3. Starting the growing process:
The growing process in watermelon cultivation is quite complicated as you need to plant the seedlings in a specific way to give them better space to germinate. When the watermelon seed is sown, each hole for the watermelon plant should be 1 foot deep and more than 1.5 feet wide. Cover the hole with fertilizer, place the seed on top and push with your finger until it reaches at least 0.5 feet deep.
For spacing, you should leave 8 feet between each plant to allow enough room for the vines to spread when the plant begins to grow. If possible, do the planting when it is hot, up to at least 70 degrees, because watermelon works best in hot climates.
4. Watering:
During the first weeks after planting, water the watermelon generously twice a week, then reduce the watering to once every two weeks as soon as the vines begin to sprout. This is to help increase the sugar content in the watermelon fruit. If a watermelon has a watery taste, it is because the grower continued to water it consistently even after the vines began to grow and did not give it the space needed to absorb the sugar from the soil.
5. Weed Control:
Because the watermelon plant is resistant to pests, more focus is needed on managing weeds on the farm; this can be done with herbicides.
6. Harvesting:
This is the part everyone is waiting for because harvesting means that the period of selling and earning money is just around the corner. I have already mentioned somewhere that a watermelon plant takes 85 days to mature.
The question is; how do you know your watermelon is ready for harvest? A watermelon is ready to be harvested when the fruit loses its bright outer appearance and also when the part of the fruit that touches the ground changes to a bright yellow color.
7. Sales:
After the harvest, the final step is transportation from the farm to the wholesaler, retailer or final consumption for sale. To successfully sell your watermelon products, you need to know who your market is. The main market for your products are: fruit store owners, grocery store owners, restaurants and hotels, pharmaceutical companies that need watermelon extracts as raw material for the production of supplements.
At this stage of the article, I have covered several subtopics related to watermelon cultivation, including: reasons to start the watermelon cultivation business, things that are needed to start the business, and how to start the business. Finally, watermelon is a fresh product and is not expected to stay fresh for long after it has been harvested, so a feasibility study needs to be conducted in your area, even before starting the farm, to ensure that there is a ready market and high demand for your products.