It seems they are using small seeded cultivars for pollinizers. Does it mean that pollen doner effects the size of the non viable seeds in the seedless watermelons. A general question.
By looking at seeds in a watermelon can we determine if a cross pollination occured ? I remember saving different colored seeds from two different watermelons of the same variety in one year.
For the first question, I have wondered the same myself. You would think that any tetraploid x diploid would come out as tiny undeveloped seeds regardless of pollen parent and if anything did matter I would think it would just be up the the mother genetics if anything. But it is an interesting practice. Makes one wonder.
As for your second question, yes, at least in some cases. It depends on the heterozygosity vs homozygosity of your original variety or varieties and the seed color of those, but in some cases you can. I am actually re-doing a watermelon seed genetics picture table for my new website, and I almost have it finished. I'll let you know when I do. Maybe I can finish it today.
The basic dominance pattern in watermelon is more color to less color. Black over dotted black. Any black over brown/tan. Any of those over green or red. Green may or may not be undeveloped brown. Red over white with pink tips.
Apparently there may be three different white seeds. White with black tips may be dominant over brown I think and any others that come after. So basically it is not actually white since it has some black. It is similar to when Darwin crossed two white pigeons and got a blue pigeon. One of the white pigeons had black tail feathers and when crossed it restored the blue color hidden in the pure white pigeons dna.
