The World's Most Expensive Melon can be found right here in Yubari, Hokkaido and in the episode, I'm going to take you from the seeds to pollination then to harvest and first auction where a pair of Yubari King Melons sold for ¥5,000,000 ($46,500) in 2019. How much will it go for this year -- but more importantly, WHY? Why do these melons, Japanese luxury fruit in general, fetch such high prices? We will go to the auction and ask the winner of the highest bid in the ultimate FARM to TABLE Series Adventure.

00:00 Start
01:22 Where do Yubari Melons grow?
01:47 Melon Pollination with Bees
02:42 Yubari Melon Seeds
03:10 Melon Seedlings
04:06 Melon Harvest
06:33 Sorting Sizes
07:20 Judging Melons for Harvest
08:08 Cutting & Eating Yubari Melons
10:06 Why Japanese Buy Expensive Melons
11:07 Yubari Melon Quality Rank
12:00 Facts about Yubari "Cantelope" Melons
13:16 Yubari Melon Auction Prices: History
13:58 Yubari Melon Auction bidding
15:07 Why he bid $26,500 for Melons
16:27 What happened to the $26,500 Melons?
16:47 All-you-can-eat Melons!
17:03 How the JA Melon Co-op works
17:34 Angry Melon Bear Attack
18:26 Yubari Melon Ice Cream

Special thanks to JA Yubari, Yubari City, Yubari Melon Producers Goto-san and Kobayashi-san for the kind help and many many delicious melons for this episode.
Where is Yubari? https://goo.gl/maps/Ycek2yWZwQPn1bWYA (Melon Dome)
Melon Kuma's House: https://goo.gl/maps/dn1ebnJ8TocxNkbE7
The Yubari King Melons are often confused with the Shizuoka Crown Melons. They're not the same and I hope this episode will correct many mistakes, misconceptions about this industry.

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John Daub has been a reporter for NHK World TV since 2008 and YouTube creator & producer of the ONLY in JAPAN ® series building a community of over 1.6M. Thanks for watching!
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