Amed’s watermelon is more than an oversized festival exhibit. Its history brings together local growing methods, named plant populations, the Tigris landscape and the farmers who maintain them. The registered Diyarbakır product and the wider province’s watermelon crop should be distinguished.

Cultivated plots and trees in the Hevsel Gardens, with the Tigris valley and an arched bridge in the hazy distance
The Hevsel Gardens at Amed/Diyarbakır, photographed by MikaelF in 2010. This is the wider agricultural landscape, not an identified Sürme watermelon plot or a photograph of the current harvest. MikaelF · Hevsel Gardens, 2010 · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Reproduced without creative changes.

What the registered watermelon is

The specification for Diyarbakır Karpuzu, registration 111, describes Citrullus lanatus and gives particular attention to Sürme. It describes round or oval fruit, dark longitudinal stripes, a thick rind and red flesh. Its stated average of 20–30 kilograms should be kept separate from descriptions of exceptionally large fruit under particular growing methods. [1] A competition specimen is not the size of every melon offered in a market. The registered regional product is also more specific than every commercial watermelon grown within the province.

Hevsel belongs to a wider Tigris growing region

UNESCO’s description of the Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape identifies the gardens as a link between the city and the Tigris that supplied food and water. The property was inscribed in 2015. [2] This recognises a cultural landscape; it is not certification that today’s watermelon variety has been continuously cultivated since the Neolithic. The watermelon specification includes villages and districts beyond Hevsel, including Bismil and Çınar. [1] Hevsel belongs to a wider agricultural region.

The work behind traditional pit cultivation

Vedat Pirinç and Erhan Akalp’s 2019 account describes kuyu karpuzculuğu, pit growing, in riverbank gravel, silt and sand. Growers waited for the Tigris to recede, dug towards the moisture level and added a prepared mixture including sheep and pigeon manure in stages as roots developed. [3] This was skilled management of a changing riverside environment, rather than simply the effect of hot weather. The authors also describe the method’s decline and report that changing river levels could flood prepared pits. Their historical description should not be presented as the unchanged practice of every present-day grower.

Named local populations need more than a size contest

Akalp and Pirinç’s chapter published in December 2024 reports a 2017 Dicle University trial of Sürme, Pembe, Beyazkış, Karakış and an Ergani comparison population. The material came from identified local sources, including Erimli and Karpuzlu. [4] Their work examined plant, fruit and seed characteristics and argued for conserving local genetic material. This makes categorical claims that all other types have vanished misleading: scarcity in commercial cultivation and surviving research material are different situations. The authors also acknowledge that their trial conditions did not reproduce all the special growing requirements. Its observations cannot establish universal fruit weights or sweetness rankings.

Harvest dates and festival dates are different

A provincial agriculture report dated 10 August 2021 documents a harvest event in Mirzabey, Bismil, ahead of planned September celebrations. [5] September is therefore not the only possible harvest month. Rudaw’s report of the September 2021 festival describes camels carrying melons, Kurdish dancing and competitions; it names farmer İkram Atlı’s 45.5-kilogram fruit as the winner. [6] That is a dated result, not an all-time maximum. The registration document describes a first festival in 1967 and interruptions thereafter. [1] The sources do not establish uninterrupted annual festivals since 1960 or this year’s programme.

A shared summer food and a living farming heritage

Cutting a large watermelon into wedges makes it easy to share; serving smaller pieces can be more practical for a household than buying a competition-sized fruit. There is no need to present one serving style as compulsory for every Kurdish family. What makes this regional food worth studying is the relationship among seed, growers, work and place. The researchers’ conservation concerns and the documented festival both point beyond spectacle. [3] [4] [6] Preserving knowledge of local populations and their cultivation gives the history more substance than an unsupported claim to a fixed share of world production or unmatched sweetness everywhere.

Sources and further reading

  1. Türk Patent Enstitüsü, Diyarbakır Karpuzu, geographical indication specification 111, pp. 1–4; product, geographical area, cultivation and festival history.
  2. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape, property 1488; description and 2015 inscription.
  3. Vedat Pirinç and Erhan Akalp, Traditional Pit Growing Method of Diyarbakir Watermelon, International Journal of Scientific and Technological Research 5/12 (2019), pp. 102–111, especially 106–109.
  4. Erhan Akalp and Vedat Pirinç, Diyarbakır Karpuzunun Bazı Morfolojik Özellikleri, in Tarımın Dili: Disiplinler Arası Bakış (December 2024), especially pp. 80–81 and 92–95; 2017 trial and conservation discussion.
  5. Diyarbakır Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry, Diyarbakır’da yarışacak tescilli karpuzların hasadı başladı, 10 August 2021; Mirzabey harvest report.
  6. Masallah Dekak, Diyarbakir promotes unique watermelons with traditional festival, Rudaw, 23 September 2021; observed event and competition result.
  7. MikaelF, Baxçeyên Hewselê Amed 2010, Wikimedia Commons; photograph, CC BY-SA 3.0.