SMITH COUNTY, Tenn. (WTVF) — At Catesa Farms in Riddleton, owner George McDonald knows there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes.
"If we're doing four semi-loads, these guys have handled over 10,000 watermelons that day," he said. "Picking up one melon and throwing it is not a big deal. You do thousands of those a day, it's several."
You can watch the watermelon harvesting process in the player above.
It's very much manual labor. Like an assembly line, the melons get cut, picked, and thrown like hot potatoes into a modified school bus, where they're then shipped off to a warehouse on the farm to be cleaned and prepared to be grocery store-ready.
The work only intensifies in the hot and humid weather of peak summer, with the watermelon harvest season beginning in mid-July and ending in early September.
"It's a hard labor, and we need to do a good job," said one of the farmers, Cayo Hernandez. "It's hard but you know we drink a lot of water, we take breaks."
While the heat affects the workers, it was actually heavy July rain that mainly affected this year's watermelon yield. McDonald says the rain filled them with too much water, lowering their overall quality.
Even so, he says the work must continue to meet demand, and they'll make sure it's done safely.
"We're like a large family here; everybody watches out for one another," he concluded.
If you're going out to buy a watermelon soon, McDonald says you'll probably pay what you're used to or slightly more this year.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at nikki.hauser@newschannel5.com.
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