Daiei watermelon

Daiei has disappeared from the current municipal map, yet it remains on the watermelon. The production area now includes Hokuei, Kotoura, and Kurayoshi, while the name points back to former Daiei Town before the 2005 merger. A watermelon carrying the Daiei Suika name must come from the defined area and follow shared rules for selected varieties, cultivation, ripening, inspection, and joint sorting.

The growing area lies near Mount Daisen, a landmark of Tottori and the highest peak in the Chugoku region. The fields are formed from fertile kuroboku, a black volcanic soil described as both water-retentive and permeable. Those soil conditions also explain why production extends beyond Hokuei into Kotoura and Kurayoshi, where similar ground supports watermelon fields. The concrete place behind Daiei Suika is this Daisen foothill soil and the central Tottori towns around it.

Watermelon growing here has more than a century behind it. In 1907, Sakamoto Chozo opened a watermelon field in Yura village, now part of Hokuei's Tsumami area, and a 2007 centennial event in Hokuei marked 100 years since watermelon was introduced there. In 1973, the Daiei Town agricultural cooperative watermelon council formed and adopted Daiei Suika as a unified name. Tradition here is practical: a field, a grower community, a shared name, sorting work, and seasonal departures from Hokuei.

The growing method is precise enough to picture. Varieties are selected through test cultivation within the production area, and growers use pipe houses or open-field tunnels for rain-shelter cultivation. Each plant is limited to two or three fruits. These choices concentrate attention on fewer watermelons and reduce the effect of rain on field growth. The quality boundary for Daiei Suika is therefore tied to visible farm work: selected varieties, covered rows, fruit limits, and shared cultivation methods.

A Daiei Suika watermelon is ripened to about 48 days after pollination, then must weigh at least 3.0 kilograms, reach at least 11 degrees of sugar content, and show no rot, deterioration, or disease. Before the season's departure flow, each fruit is checked by tapping and then handled through joint sorting. The family is also described as having little variation in shape and a small difference in sweetness between the center and the flesh near the rind. Its consistency comes from counted field days, weight and sugar thresholds, fruit health, and hands-on inspection.

On June 10, 2025, Hokuei held the first-sendoff ceremony for Daiei Suika, and 27,000 watermelons were loaded onto trucks bound for Kansai and Kanto. That season involved 194 grower households cultivating 150 hectares, with targets of 530,000 cases and 1 million watermelons; 28 children from a Hokuei nursery school also sang as the trucks left. The seasonal scene gives the crop a human scale: growers, the association, children, trucks, and large 3L-centered watermelons described as high in sugar with a crisp texture.

Daiei Suika reaches the early-summer sendoff through a link between field judgment and shared sorting. The local timeline marks the completion of an integrated watermelon sorting plant in 1994, and in 2007 new sorting equipment was introduced with sugar sensors, grade judgment, automatic transfer, and automatic boxing. Those machines sit beside older forms of shared work: the 1973 naming decision, one-by-one tapping checks, and joint sorting. Continuity is concrete here, found in the association, the sorting plant, the sensors, and the watermelons that leave Hokuei each early summer.