University of California, Davis on Nov. 12-15, 2018, was someone for whom bringing the flavour back to supermarket cantaloupe has been a major project. Victor Verlage, senior director of resilient sourcing for Wal-Mart, deliv- ered an opening address that focused heavily on working with the seed community to deliver new varieties of melon to consumers. A big focus of his talk was the Sweet Spark can- taloupe, developed by Walmart and Bayer, and now sold in over 1,300 U.S. Walmart stores. Sweet Spark is sweeter than other cantaloupe sold at the supermarket. While regular melons have excel- lent shelf life and growers like them because they yield well and are Researchers from around the world are working to bolster the hardiness and quality of cucurbits. Marc Zienkiewicz WHAT’SSOCOMPLICATEDABOUT ACANTALOUPE?PLENTY 18 GERMINATION.CA JANUARY 2019 WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE. You buy a supermarket cantaloupe, cut it up, take a bite, and start chewing. You’d hoped for a juicy, succulent, flavour- ful fruit, but instead the experience is akin to trying to eat a piece of wood. One that kind of, sort of tastes like cantaloupe. Lack of flavour in supermarket varieties of melon and other cucur- bits is a hot topic right now in the breeding community, so much so that a keynote speaker at the recent Cucurbitaceae 2018 conference at the Walmart’s Victor Verlage addresses attendees of Cucurbitaceae 2018 in Davis, Calif. on Nov. 15. disease resistant, they can be lacking in the flavour department, Verlage notes. “For the past 15 years, cantaloupe has been losing ground among our customers. Year over year, our canta- loupe sales continued to decline,” he said. “Consumer insights show that product attributes, especially flavour, need to change in order for Walmart customers to start buying cantaloupe again. We need to delight palates.” Enter the cucurbit research com- munity. The hunt for new genetics that get turned into varieties like Sweet Spark is heating up, and cucurbit researchers and breeders are posi- tioned to deliver on what the market- place is after by “bringing back” the flavour to cucurbits like cantaloupe. But alas, it’s not an easy task. Sweet Spark was years in develop- ment, and varieties like it don’t typi- cally come with the sky-high yields, ease of harvest and long shelf life of traditional supermarket varieties. “Flavour in vegetables used to be much more common in heirlooms,