US: Taste is key for cantaloupe breeders, shape for watermelon breeders

Across the globe, Monsanto performs melon field trials. Earlier this week, Carly Scaduto with the company’s communications department provided a tour of the company’s field trials in Woodland, CA. I had an opportunity to talk with the breeders responsible for the company’s melon and watermelon programs. 

“Consumer quality is my main focus during the breeding process,” says Jeff Mills, melon breeder at the Woodland site. “I feel that is something that suffered in the past seven to ten years and it really is a way to differentiate ourselves.” Mills’ goal is to bring the quality back to the level where it used to be.

In the process of breeding a new melon variety, Mills does the tasting part and decides whether a variety passes and moves on to the next phase. In later stages, an on-site sensory scientist as well as consumer panels are involved. Monsanto talks directly to food retailers and invites them on site to learn about the different melon varieties and taste them. “Retailer education is a way to make the distinction between a commodity and a specialty product.” Monsanto has a team dedicated to building relationships with retailers.

Taste is key for the consumer. “However, we also need to take the grower’s economics into consideration,” said Mills. “A traditional western shipper melon requires a lot of labor to pick almost every day and we focus on developing varieties that require fewer passes through the field.” In addition, shelf-life and ship ability are important elements. During the US winter season, melons for the US market are grown in Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica. “Our varieties have no problem making the journey from Central America to the US, being trucked across country and still having ten days left on the shelf.” Monsanto also has developed melon varieties that are grown in California and Arizona that are well adapted to that climate.

Monsanto’s watermelon breeding program supports the entire globe, except for Asia. One breeder, Greg Tolla, represents Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The company’s other melon breeder, Jerome Bernier, covers North America, South America, Central America and Australia. 

“With watermelons, it all comes down to shape and size,” says Greg Tolla. “Shape preferences differ around the globe. In South America, all countries except for Brazil, prefer a traditional, elongated shape watermelon. Brazil wants a round shape. The smaller, round watermelon is the winner in Europe with Spain preferring a smaller 5 lbs. watermelon. Towards the East, in Turkey, the preference is a large 20 lbs. melon. This is a recent trend as much bigger sizes used to be favored,” added Tolla. 

“About ten years ago, there was a big breeding effort globally towards smaller size melons and we thought it was going to change the market. However, the personal size never became more than 10 percent of the market. Bigger watermelons continue to be favored as they are relatively less expensive.”

“People’s preferences all go back to what watermelons have been traditionally. Everyone prefers a red flesh, sweet and good tasting watermelon, but the consumer wants a different package in terms of shape, size and striping pattern. We spend more than 50 percent of our breeding efforts on making the package that fits the market,” said Tolla.

Disease resistance makes up about 25 percent of the breeding efforts and the remaining 25 percent goes into interior quality, color and sweetness of the fruit. In recent years, we’ve seen a trend toward seedless watermelons and because of consumer preference, we no longer breed seeded watermelons for the US market. All of South America on the other hand prefers seeded. “I believe the biggest factor between preference for seeded versus seedless is supermarkets driving it. In the US, supermarkets drove the change. I am not familiar enough with the supermarket influence in South America, but I know that the majority of watermelons is sold in fruit stands along the road,” mentioned Tolla.

A seedless watermelon is about six times more expensive than its seeded counterpart. In terms of dollar value, the breakdown between seeded and seedless on the global market is about 50/50. In terms of volume however, seeded still makes up about 80 percent.

Yield and brix specifications are the most important requirements for growers of Monsanto’s watermelon seeds. The requirements of retailers on the other hand are most strict when it comes to the fresh-cut segment. “For fresh-cut, they are looking for a firmer flesh and a bigger size fruit for the processing machine to get more weight recovery out of that bigger piece,” said Tolla. 

For more information:

Carly Scaduto

Tel: (+1) 314-694-3247