Recently, a short video of a pepper plant bearing a big watermelon went viral on WeChat Moments. Can a pepper plant really bear a watermelon? Many netizens believe it is a fruit produced by grafting a watermelon onto a pepper plant, but Science Xingnong believes that the watermelon in the photo was not borne by the pepper plant, nor was it grafted; it was probably an effect created by the video taker placing a watermelon on the pepper plant.

The reasons for doubting the photo (video) of a pepper plant bearing a watermelon are as follows. Science Xingnong will discuss them below.

First, watermelon and pepper do not belong to the same family, and their genetic relationship is distant

There is a rather important principle regarding grafting: the genetic relationship must not be too distant. You have probably all heard of human organ transplantation. Its principle is somewhat similar to that of grafting, and in transplantation, transplanting between different species is much more difficult than transplanting within the same species, and the same problem exists in grafting. For example, grafting watermelon onto watermelon is very easy to achieve, while grafting watermelon onto pumpkin is slightly more difficult, and if the grafted plants are even more distantly related, the difficulty increases further.

As for cases of grafting watermelon onto pepper, at least I have not seen any reports of it. In principle it is not impossible, but grafting these two is still relatively difficult.

Second, the watermelon in the video has no watermelon leaves at all

Could grafting mean grafting only a single watermelon pistil? Obviously that is impossible, and such grafting is basically impossible. An isolated watermelon growing on a pepper plant is unrealistic. Usually our grafting is nothing more than grafting the stem of the watermelon. Therefore, one can only suspect that the watermelon was simply placed on the pepper plant.

So, in my personal judgment, this photo of a watermelon grafted onto a pepper plant should be man-made rather than real.

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