The Sweeter Cantaloupe

Cantaloupes just got a little sweeter.

Lewis Jett, Missouri vegetable crops specialist and an MU department of horticulture assistant professor, has been experimenting with a special variety of super sweet cantaloupes for nearly two years.

You wouldn’t be able to notice any difference between the specialty cantaloupes and the regular melons before cutting into them, he said. The specialty cantaloupe is the same size and has the same gold rind as a regular cantaloupe, but cutting into the fruit reveals a green flesh that differs from the orange of its predecessor.

Jett said the melon is both high yielding and great tasting.

“They’re sweeter than even a watermelon, and there’s not as much juice,” Jett said.

The specialty cantaloupes have 15 to 16 percent sugar content, more than regular cantaloupes, which have 10 to 11 percent sugar content.

Jett has a long history with growing melons. As a teenager on a farm in West Virginia, he started growing melons and has had a passion for them ever since. He said he is fascinated by the diversity of their colors and shapes — and he loves their taste.

“It’s nice to be able to eat what you grow,” he said.

Jett grows the specialty melons in high tunnel greenhouses at MU’s Bradford Research and Extension Center, five miles east of Columbia. The high tunnels, or “hoop houses,” are plastic-covered greenhouses that extend the growing season. The high tunnels are part of additional research Jett is conducting in conjunction with other professors and crops specialists at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Kansas State University.

Six of the eight hoop houses contain melons, while the remaining two are growing peppers and strawberries.

Jett planted the specialty cantaloupes in early April and expects them to be ready for summer.

“We are so far, so good, for picking in June,” Jett said.

In addition to cantaloupes, Jett is also experimenting with specialty watermelons.

The seedless melons are about the size of a cantaloupe and weigh about five or six pounds.

“They have been doing this in Japan for years, and we are just now starting to adopt this technology,” he said.

Jett said he is always trying to get growers to plant more niche crops to be sold locally.

According to Jett, the advantage of growing and selling locally is the produce can be picked vine-ripe the day before it is to be marketed.

“This gives the produce the optimal quality,” he said.

Jett said he hopes to sell the first harvest of specialty melons at local farmers’ markets.

“We’d like to sell them locally and get them some exposure to consumers,” he said.

He also said he thinks local restaurant chefs could also benefit from trying out the super sweet fruits.