Though water is scarce throughout the area, the watermelons have thrived, gulping their moisture from underground supplies nourished by irrigation. Already the Johnsons have loaded more than 200 truckloads, each with roughly 40,000 pounds of the sweet fruit. With harvest expected to last about one more week, they hope to load about 300 more trucks, shipping melons to Canada, the East Coast, California and a few Texas destinations. But that's only if the heat doesn't get them first, Johnson said. With temperatures reaching and exceeding the 100-degree mark on an almost daily basis, watermelons burn and become worthless to a melon distributor.
Harvesters can do little more than leave the half-baked melons where they sit in the field.
It's just a race to get them in before they burn.'' About 200 migrant workers stay busy from 7 a.m. until midnight or 1 a.m. every day. But the heat does have one worthy effect on the melons, Johnson said. The sugar content gets better in hot weather. The Hunters have about 200 acres planted. They also started their harvest earlier than in the past, and, like the Johnsons, were glad to have melons at all this year.