'Pacal' Orange Casaba: A Multi-disease Resistant, Specialty Melon Cultivar from Texas A&M AgriLife Research
Overview
Research
Identity
Additional Document Info
Other
View All
Overview
abstract
2015 American Society for Horticultural Science. All rights reserved. Melons (Cucumis melo L.) are among the most popular and nutritious fruiting vegetables in the United States, with the lowest cost per pound to the consumer. The high levels of vitamin C, carotenoids, folate, potassium, and superoxide dismutase (SOD) provide valuable antioxidant and other human health-promoting properties (Lester, 2008; Lester et al., 2009). Hence melons have become an important component of fresh-cut food productswhere convenience, quality, and safety are in high demand. Quantifiable consumer preference traits, such as taste (sweetness), texture (firmness), or flavor (aroma), all contribute to the popularity of melons as components of the whole-fruit and fresh-cut sectors. These consumer satisfaction components are strongly influenced by genetic as well as environmental and production management factors (Lester et al., 2007). Continued breeding efforts to improve consumer preference, as well as retail and production suitability traits such as shelf life and disease resistance, have resulted in diverse melon types. Many of these specialty melons are uniquely flavorful and often receive higher prices for growers and retailers (Guan et al., 2013). The rapid growth of farmers markets and other direct marketing techniques have also driven demand for more types of specialty melons or better tasting cultivars.