Watermelon farming is taking shape... Agricultural expert, "high-end cultivation system" field verification results

(Iksan=Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Jin-bang = The Korea Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology announced on the 16th that it is pushing forward with a field verification project for a "high-level watermelon cultivation device" in four regions across the country (Changwon in Gyeongnam, Gochang in Jeonbuk, Anseong in Gyeonggi, and Jecheon in Chungbuk) in collaboration with a team led by Professor An Seong-gwang from Pusan National University.

This project was selected as a task for the 2025 Agricultural Technology Industry-Academia Cooperation Support Project, focusing on growing watermelons on waist-height cultivation beds.

Watermelons are a crop that requires a lot of management labor, and the conventional prone cultivation method involves repeated bending over, which poses a significant burden on elderly farmers. The use of a high-level cultivation device allows workers to perform tasks such as fertilization, pesticide spraying, and harvesting while standing.

The Pusan National University research team integrated smart farm sensor technology to digitize temperature, humidity, irrigation conditions, and pest and disease environments, and based on this, they were able to apply the optimal cultivation conditions for each site. This has created a smart agricultural environment that is easy to use even for novice farms and the elderly.

The verification results showed that the number of plantings per 200 pyeong (660 m²) increased from about 450 to over 800, and the average watermelon weight was maintained uniformly at 7 to 8 kg, improving marketability.

Farmers in the Jecheon region of Chungbuk who participated in the verification achieved additional income of over 8 million won per greenhouse, demonstrating economic benefits.

Kim Gi-min, a watermelon farmer from Changwon in Gyeongnam who participated in the verification, said, "The difficult work of repeatedly sitting and standing has decreased, making it much easier," and "The burden on the waist has decreased, and the watermelon quality is uniform, so satisfaction is high."

The Pusan National University research team is developing an "improved high-level cultivation device" in collaboration with private companies. They are also planning to produce a field manual based on cultivation environment data by 2026 and are exploring the possibility of expanding to similar fruits and vegetables such as melons and oriental melons.

Director Ahn Ho-geun of the Agricultural Science and Technology Institute said, "As the high-level cultivation device has been verified in farms, we plan to actively support its rapid commercialization," and "In the future, we will continue to discover and disseminate excellent agricultural technologies that can be felt in agricultural fields."