In 1935, Julius Mouzin Sr. started his small farm as a way to feed not only his own family but provide nutrition to a nearby orphanage. In the past nearly 100 years, the family has grown the operation and today provides products to consumers in across the United States.

“We’ve had watermelon and cantaloupe since the inception of the farm,” explained fourth generation Mouzin Brothers Farms operator Brady Mouzin. “In that time, we’ve come to understand the challenges both crops have for not only us, but our customers as well.”

Cantaloupe is a crop with unique challenges. From shelf life to taste to transportability, the Mouzin family is continually looking for solutions for one of the oldest-growing crops on their farm.

Seeking Cantaloupe with Better Shelf Life

For Brady and his family, shelf life has been the biggest challenge to cantaloupe production. It’s a careful balance, they want varieties that have the sweet flavor and great texture found in certain varieties, but they also look for longevity like what’s found in long-shelf-life (LSL) melons.

“Traditional Athena and Aphrodite melon varieties were what we started with on the farmstand,” Brady said. “They get huge and super yellow, with an amazing aroma, but if you tried to store them on your countertop more than two or three days, they wouldn’t last.

“When the food industry changed and we saw products moving farther, the shorter shelf-life cantaloupes pretty much became obsolete.”

Enter LSL melons – the innovation that provided more flexibility for growers, shippers, and consumers. However, while it dominated the long-shelf-life category, consumers noted it lacked in some other important areas.

“We know that with some long-shelf-life melons, there were challenges that impacted not only growers, but consumers’ perceptions of the fruit,” explained Bernie Hamel, Syngenta Vegetable Seeds Value Added Chain Lead.

Brady and his family noted this perception change as well, flavor and aromatics changed with the addition of LSL melons to their lineup. While it solved one problem, shelf life, it opened the door to new challenges – challenges they needed solutions for.

Cantaloupes that Feature Great Flavor, Aromatics, and Shelf Life

Through Syngenta’s trialing programs, Brady and his family got a close look at IDEAL Melons from the start and tried them on their own fields as soon as they could.

“We’ve sampled the IDEAL Melons, specifically Damaris, on our farm for three seasons and they’ve worked out great,” Brady said. “We’re super excited about it – they’re just a continuous improvement on the challenges we’ve had over the past years and for shelf life specifically. IDEAL Melons taste and shelf life will help us expand our market geographically because they can ship farther.”

The University of California-Davis recently studied IDEAL Melons to see just how different they are from traditional LSL melons. The four-trial experiment compared IDEAL Melons with other LSL melons on the market today from Guatemala, Yuma Desert, San Joaquin Valley, and Woodland, Calif. The melons were tested using destructive and non-destructive evaluations to measure flesh firmness, juiciness, external and internal color, aromatics, shelf life, a consumer panel, and more. Their key findings include:

• Significantly more volatile organic compounds (aroma)
• Remarkably higher and consistent Brix (sugars)
• More dark orange flesh (abundance of carotenoids)
• Consistent flesh texture – firmness
• Consumer panel showed participants strongly preferred IDEAL Melons over traditions LSLs due to taste

“IDEAL Melons are helping us solve this equation we’ve been working with for a long time, how do we have a long shelf life melon without eating something that is tough and doesn’t taste good,” Brady explained. “They’re holding on to that flavor we had in the past without the shelf life and flesh softness issues. They have that strong aroma and super robust flavor we’re looking for.

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(c) 2023 Syngenta. Some or all of the varieties may be protected under one or more of the following: Plant Variety Protection, United States Plant Patents and/or Utility Patents and may not be propagated or reproduced without authorization.