Australia
October 10, 2025
Lachlan Grierson is Rijk Zwaan’s Sales Representative based in Western Australia. He is working to bring greater choice to melon shoppers and growers and reignite our excitement for watermelon season.
What keeps watermelon growers up at night?
Aussie watermelon growers must find varieties that do everything well – produce good-sized, quality fruit with maximum sweetness and be able to withstand the heat in our increasingly extreme summers without succumbing to sunburn. Fusarium is also a major problem in the Perth area, so we also need varieties that can perform well when grafted onto disease-resistant rootstocks.
Fruit shoppers have a lot of choice regarding where to spend their money, especially during our warmer seasons, so melon growers are competing with other high-quality summer fruits like grapes, mangoes, berries, and stone fruits. Watermelons can be incredible value when you consider the volume of product you get for your money – but the taste must be good otherwise shoppers will go back to those other, often more expensive, fruits.
Why are you excited about the Tropical Sunshine melon variety?
Tropical Sunshine watermelon looks as great as it tastes—it’s really something very special. Not only does it have stand-out yellow flesh that is very crisp and juicy, it’s also very sweet, often out-classing the red ones at 11-12 Brix. Our breeders have also addressed the issue of red colour bleeding, which was sometimes found in earlier yellow flesh varieties. Tropical Sunshine has a fantastic, uniform colour.
The plant is strong, particularly when grafted, and yields very well. In our trials we’ve seen 20+ kilograms of fruit on the vines, with fruits weighing 4-6kg each. They have lovely dark skin holding up in the summer heat, which is what our growers need.
Yellow watermelons are starting to attract a lot of attention with consumers who love the colour and taste, so we are excited that Tropical Sunshine has the potential to keep growing demand.
What have the reactions from growers during trials been?
Tropical Sunshine is part of a dedicated breeding programme that aims to bring different flesh colours, flavour and skin types to the market, so our trials are challenging some of the ways we think about watermelon here in Australia. We are looking at global trends to help shoppers rethink melons, and to give them more choice, which means more opportunity for growers too.
The bright yellow colour of Tropical Sunshine provides an opportunity to reconnect with consumers by providing colourful high-quality melons, and it lends itself to processing for the snack market. We work hand-in-hand with growers and retailers to educate and excite consumers about this.
How are we preparing and eating melon these days?
Our climate here in Western Australia, and in northern Australia, means we enjoy melon in salads and as a stand-alone snack for quite a few months of the year. Melons are also added to smoothies and can be used as great sweetener to make spinach and other blended greens more palatable in their blended form. In this way, Tropical Sunshine can help increase vegetable consumption, which is needed for our collective wellbeing.
Do you have a favourite way to eat or prepare Tropical Sunshine?
Making your own desserts with Tropical Sunshine is a sure-fire way to keep everyone happy at your next event. You can use any kind of melon in this ‘popsicle’ recipe from the Veggies First website, but if you’re looking for a simple, popular salad this watermelon, cucumber and apple salad is a personal favourite.
Tropical Sunshine RZ
TROPICAL SUNSHINE RZ F1 (62-599)
Watermelon | Sugar baby | Yellow-flesh | Seedless
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Species
