Variety selection is one of the critical decisions that growers must make each season. According to the University of Delaware, Cooperative Extension, it’s important to consider these factors when making variety decisions:

• Yield
• Days to harvest/maturity
• Disease and insect resistance
• Resistance to adverse environmental conditions
• Adaptability
• Horticultural quality
• Plant characteristics
• Market acceptability

This May, vegetable seed resellers, growers and industry representatives attended an exclusive event held at the Syngenta Research Station in Naples, Florida, to see first-hand the features and benefits of Syngenta watermelon and melon varieties in the field.

Attendees at the spring trial event had an opportunity to evaluate seven different watermelon varieties and four different melon varieties. One of the new watermelon varieties, Sweet Dawn watermelon impressed participants with its intensely sweet flavor, firm flesh, standout appearance, and its potential to generate strong demand in the market.

Sweet Dawn offers:

• Early maturity
• Large fruit size early, with mostly 45- and 36-count fruit and a few 60-count fruit
• Intermediate resistance to Fusarium wilt race 1 and Anthracnose race 1

Two new eastern shipper melon varieties with exciting potential were featured during the event due to their enhanced disease packages and improved fruit quality over other eastern shipper melons.

To learn more about watermelon and melon varieties, visit www.syngenta-us.com/vegetables or contact your Syngenta sales representative.

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