By Ranna Hebert

Everyone’s favorite tasty and thirst-quenching fruit is being sold by the agricultural sciences graduate students this week at McNeese State University.

Lovers of fresh watermelon can thank the university for its newest graduate research program, the Watermelon Project. McNeese received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to start the program, as well as a LDAF-Agricultural Marketing Service Specialty Crop Block Grant. The project offers the community farm-to-table fruit.

The grant also allows McNeese to collaborate with the Coushatta Tribal Youth and students from Allen Parish high schools to organize and oversee research while incorporating a demonstration on sustainable watermelon patches. Thus, the collaboration essentially uses locally produced byproducts for recruiting young adults into specialty crop agriculture, undergraduate education, graduate student research and local producer education.

The leader of this successful harvest is Chiamaka Uwaoma Nnadi, a graduate assistant in the Harold and Pearl Dripps School of Agriculture. Nnadi, along with two other graduates and one undergrad student, are soaking in their accomplishments and said the gained insight would not be possible without the inclusion and accessibility of Coushatta, Turner Farms and Fuller Farms.

These multiple students were celebrating Thursday because Lake Charles residents seem to love the outcome of the students’ involvement in the freshly harvested watermelons.

According to William “Bill” Storer, McNeese professor and research associate, the new hotspot for watermelons is no coincidence. Storer said the overwhelming “satisfaction is due to one of the three farms being about eight miles outside of Sugartown. This town is said to produce the best watermelons.”

The Watermelon Project is being sold in front of Gayle Hall. Updates on the locally sourced fruit are also available on the McNeese Facebook page.

The proceeds from this program will be put back into the enterprise to continue the Watermelon Project in years to come.