This work is focused on the variable selection in building the partial least squares (PLS) regression model of soluble solids content (SSC) that is used to evaluate quality grading of watermelon. The spectra were obtained by the near infrared (NIR) spectrometer with the device designed for on-line quality grading of watermelon and the spectra of 680-950 nm were adopted to analysis. The variable selection was based on Monte-Carlo uninformative variable elimination (MC-UVE) and genetic algorithm (GA). In comparison of the performances of the full-spectra (680-950 nm) PLS regression model and the feature wavelengths PLS regression model showed that the MC-UVE-GA-PLS model with baseline offset correction combined multiplicative scatter correction (MSC) pretreatment was much better and 14 variables in total were selected. The correlation coefficients between the predicted and actual SSC were 0.885 and 0.845, the root mean square errors were 0.562 degrees Brix and 0.574 degrees Brix for calibration and prediction set, respectively. This work can make a great contribution to the research of on-line quality grading for watermelon nondestructively. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.