(11/18/25) MINDEN, La. — Joshua Fitzwater is a self-professed “watermelon nerd.”

A food writer from Virginia, Fitzwater took an interest in tracking down heirloom watermelon varieties several years ago. He started taking road trips with his partner and fellow food writer, Deb Freeman, that gradually grew longer and longer as the quest to find one-of-a-kind watermelons intensified.

This eventually led the pair to Louisiana, LSU AgCenter horticulture agent Kerry Heafner and the Red-N-Sweet watermelon.

Like many of the watermelons Fitzwater and Freeman had sampled, Red-N-Sweet is a regional favorite from yesteryear that is no longer widely grown. Released in 1987 by the now-closed AgCenter Calhoun Research Station near Monroe, Red-N-Sweet was essentially lost to history until Heafner got his hands on some seeds in 2020.

The food writers came across Heafner’s social media posts raving about the productive, crimson-fleshed, extremely sweet watermelon he had found. On their trek to Louisiana in 2021, they tasted what Fitzwater described as the sweetest watermelon he’d ever tried.

Determined to introduce more people to the variety, they took some seeds back home to Virginia to begin growing watermelons and saving their seeds. Chefs and foodies caught on, and Fitzwater now estimates 1,000 growers are producing the Red-N-Sweet in his area.

“If not for Kerry’s work, if not for the research station’s work … this sweet gem of an heirloom wouldn’t exist, and it wouldn’t be taking Virginia by storm,” Fitzwater said Nov. 15 at “Hand Them Down to Lift Them Up: An Heirloom Food Forum.” Held at The Farm of Cultural Crossroads in Minden, the event was organized by Slow Food North Louisiana.

The rediscovery of the Red-N-Sweet sparked the creation of the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program, which Heafner runs with AgCenter horticulture agent Marcie Wilson, and remains its biggest success story to date. But the agents — who have unearthed dozens of long-forgotten fruit and vegetable varieties, many developed by LSU scientists — hope to reignite similar interest in other outstanding crops from the past and the time-honored practice of saving seeds.

Their work has drawn attention and praise of people from around the country — like Fitzwater and Freeman as well as those involved with the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste program, to which Red-N-Sweet was nominated. It also has piqued curiosity of locals who want to help find, share and grow varieties that used to be mainstays of family gardens and farms in Louisiana. And it provides an avenue for people to connect with history.

“Think about it like a piece of furniture that’s been really important in your family that gets handed down generation after generation to remember your family’s history,” said Angie White, chair of Slow Food North Louisiana. “It’s the same thing with seeds and foods.”

The North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program traces its roots to 2019, when a visitor showed up at Heafner’s office in West Monroe in search of Calhoun Purplehull pea seeds.

Though he had never heard of it, Heafner quickly set about locating seeds for the variety; he would later learn it was developed in 1966 at the Calhoun station, which closed in 2011. He sourced some seeds through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“I was able to grow that out and put some seeds in this man’s hand, and that just made his day,” Heafner said. “There was no feeling in the world like it, and I said, ‘We’ve accomplished something.’”

Not long after, Heafner met Lula Shurtleff, a resident of the Marion community in Union Parish who offered him some watermelon seeds that were stashed in a cracker tin in her freezer. Heafner had been getting questions from constituents about where they could find the long-lost watermelon varieties that had once been popular in north Louisiana.

Heafner was thrilled when he realized the seeds he’d gotten from Shurtleff — who was in the audience at the Minden event — were none other than the beloved Red-N-Sweet.

Those experiences made Heafner wonder: “What else is out there?” As he began researching LSU’s variety development program — much of which was carried out at Calhoun — and asking around about what seeds people might have tucked away, the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program took shape.

Heafner has met a lot of people on the quest to find and catalog historical fruit and vegetable varieties. Many of these plants have interesting backstories and hold special importance in families.

For example, he has forged a bond with the descendants of Ruby Jane Green Savage, known as “Ma Savage” — a Marion woman who befriended renowned horticulturist J.C. Miller and shared pole bean seeds with him. Miller, who bred many of the LSU varieties released in the 1930s and 1940s, used Savage’s seeds to grow plants that became parents to two new varieties: Savage Wonder and Green Savage.

Heafner obtained some of the original Savage bean seeds from a great granddaughter in 2022 and has kept in touch.

“That’s been one of the pleasures doing this seed program — is getting to know the families,” he said.

Wilson demonstrated how to save various kinds of seeds at the event. She encouraged people to give some of the older varieties a try and do their part to preserve Louisiana’s agricultural heritage.

“It’s a lot of fun finding this stuff that’s rare and not very common — and it’s all good stuff,” she said. “It was all bred for Louisiana, for our climate, for our growing conditions, so of course it’s going to do quite well for us.”

Heafner and Wilson are planning the seed program’s second annual swap and sale, which will take place Feb. 7 at the Southern Forest Heritage Museum in Longleaf in Rapides Parish. Contact them at KHeafner@agcenter.lsu.edu and MMWilson@agcenter.lsu.edu for more information about the event and their seed collection.

LSU AgCenter horticulture agent Marcie Wilson, right, who works with the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program, speaks with visitors about the program’s seed collection at a Nov. 15 event in Minden. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Virginia-based food writer Joshua Fitzwater, right, speaks at “Hand Them Down to Lift Them Up: An Heirloom Food Forum” at The Farm of Cultural Crossroads in Minden. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

LSU AgCenter horticulture agent Kerry Heafner speaks about his work with the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Lula Shurtleff, of Marion, speaks about the Red-N-Sweet watermelon seeds she kept in her freezer and later shared with LSU AgCenter horticulture agent Kerry Heafner. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

LSU AgCenter horticulture agent Marcie Wilson demonstrates how to remove seeds from an okra pod for storage. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter