Oh, that’s excellent news!
Yup, good news if you want cucumber flavor! 
Mature seeds that could be saved to grow next year’s plants, too. Perhaps that would even select for earlier ripening?
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DING DING DING***** That would SUPER Valuable
Sweetness was reduced, so kind of similar to Dosokai Melons? They aren’t sweet, kind of sour & Used more like a Vegetable.
Yes Go for it! I was thinking of letting everything cross (All Cultivar Groups) that survives simply to get climatically adapted cucumis melo. Then Select for taste.
Hee hee! Yes, I figured you might think so.
You could also try harvesting them a few weeks unripe and then leaving them on a counter for a few weeks. Then you’ll select for longer storage life.
Most will probably taste like cucumbers. A few may taste like ripe melons, and if so, you will have found plants that can ripen immature fruits off the vine, which would super valuable!
That trait does exist in some Cucumis melo varieties, such as Christmas melon. So it’s possible it may be found in other varieties (and especially landraces).
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In case it helps, Israeli melon has been the only survivor in my garden for two years in a row. Its traits:
- Drought tolerant. (In 2021, I didn’t water it very much, I didn’t have any mulch to give it, our temperatures were very hot, and we don’t get rain in summer. The rest of my melons died. This one did fine.)
- Shade tolerant. (In 2021, my only surviving plant grew under my bush zucchinis, and it produced six fruits: two ripe before frost and four not quite ripe yet.)
- Intensely sweet when perfectly mature.
- Sweet all the way to the rind. None of that “flavorlessness near the rind” stuff.
- Tastes exactly like a cucumber when immature. (This has also been true of the other varieties I’ve tried in the past.)
- Capable of sitting on the counter for a few weeks without rotting. I opened my immature ones three weeks after harvesting them (which I had to do early because frost was coming). I was hoping they would mature off the plant. They hadn’t; they tasted like cucumbers. But they had fully mature seeds, and they hadn’t rotted after three weeks of sitting around at room temperature.
- The fruits are round and netted, with green flesh.
- The rind is very thin. So thin that is actually edible. It’s not tasty, but it’s not bad, especially since the flesh clinging to the rind is still sweet and delicious. So if you wanted to eat them like cucumbers, you might be able to get away with leaving the rind on, if you wanted to.
So if you’re looking for a specific variety to try out, Israeli melon may be a good one. I contributed some seeds of it to the melon Delicious Mix this year, so if you got that packet, you probably have some in there. 
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Weren’t you the one who Managed to ripen an unripe Zuchinni 2 weeks after being Pollinated? Using that same method, why can’t it work that way with Melons? They both part of the same cucurbitaceae family. I think it was Joeseth Lofthouse who had to harvest unripe Squash due to short season but still managed to get some viable seed. This selected for Earlier Ripening Squash.
This is AWESOME!
Isn’t this just Galia Melon?
That’s Incredible!
How sweet can they get? What’s the sweetest Cucumis period?
Yep, I’m the one who got zucchini that ripened just fine off the plant after only two weeks of being on it. But that is zucchini, which are known for growing exceptionally quickly.
Species in the Cucurbita genus tend to be good at ripening off the vine. Unfortunately, the same does not translate for all genera in the same family.
Varieties of Cucumis melo are not often capable of ripening off the vine. It’s clearly possible within the species, though, because there are a few specialized varieties that do it. I would be totally on board with someone creating a landrace revolving around that trait.
Same goes for Citrullus lanatus (watermelon). Ripening off the vine has to be possible for watermelons because that’s how Blacktail Mountain was bred, but that’s the only time I’ve ever heard of it happening. I would love to see someone breed a landrace that can consistently do that.
Israeli melon is considered a subset of Galia melon. I don’t know what Israeli was bred for specifically, but given the name, I suspect heat tolerance and drought tolerance were among the favored traits – which would fit with it liking my climate. 
The sweetest Cucumis melo I’ve ever read about was 21 degrees Brix, which is spectacular. Most are around 12 to 14 degrees Brix. I’ve never eaten one that sweet, but I’d love to. I don’t have a refractometer, so I’m just estimating, but I suspect a perfectly ripe Israeli melon is somewhere around 18 degrees Brix. Very sweet, and very tasty.
OMG, I HAVE TO TRY IT! That’s incredible. Do you remember the variety name? I wonder how sweet lofthouse melons get? Also why are grocery store cantelopes so firm? Uh, it’s so hard & Uncomfortable to eat with a spoon like ice cream.
This is incredible, this give me hope if we can pool from those genetics. I’m also wondering if grafting onto zucchini will speed up ripening? It’s possible but I think Only at seedling stage other wise the hallow tubes ungraft/break-apart easily.
Let’s see . . . (Checks notes.)
Hmmm, looks like I was remembering wrongly. These are my notes, taken from reading this book:
Cucumis melo:
Chamoe: Early. 12° brix. Pleasant external aroma. Size of an apple and prolific. Also called Korean melon.
Sakata’s Sweet: Early. 14.5° brix. Size of an apple and one of the sweetest.
Pride of Wisconsin: Early. 12.5° brix. Similar to Golden Gopher. Adapted to short growing seasons.
Golden Gopher: Early. 10.5° brix. 14° brix have been reported. The most cold-hardy melon I want.
Jenny Lind: Early. 11° brix. Has “outie belly button” where the flower was. Inside is neat-looking.
Delicious 51: Early. 12.5° brix. Probably the earliest melon to mature.
Branco: Midseason. 14° brix. Sweet, firm, white flesh. Does best in hot, dry summers.
Petit Gris des Rennes: Midseason. 14° brix. True cantaloupe. Tastes like Charentais, only better. Slight brown sugar taste.
Old Time Tennessee: Midseason. 12.5° brix. Tastes like lichee, roses, and pepper. Eat immediately after harvesting.
Piel de Sapo: Midseason. 12° brix. Mixed up with Santa Claus; better taste. Very long shelf life: two or three months.
Zatta: Midseason to late. 12.5° brix. True cantaloupe. One of the best tasting melons. Also called ugly melon.
Prescott Fond Blanc: Late. 12.5° brix. True cantaloupe. Looks puffy, like dough rising.
Orange Flesh Honeydew: Late. 13° brix. Honeydew is the sweetest melon when it’s harvested ripe. Stores sell it unripe.
Amarillo Oro: Late. 14° brix. Has a delicate perfume and flesh that goes from green to yellow.
Ashkabad: Late. 14° brix. Crisp and sweet, tastes like an exceptional honeydew.
Golden Jenny: Orange-fleshed Jenny Lind on short vines, almost a bush variety.
Valencia: Late. 13.5° brix. Can store for up to four months, and becomes more flavorful in storage.
Charentais: Midseason. 12° brix. The most popular old French true cantaloupe.
Minnesota Midget: Early. 11° brix. Compact vines, 3-4 feet, and fist-sized fruit. Perfect for trellising.
Sweet Granite: Early. Good for cold climates; bred for New Hampshire. Mild but pleasant. I was given five seeds of this for free.
Citrullus lanatus:
Crimson Sweet: Midseason. 14° brix. This is the store-bought watermelon. It’s the sweetest and tastiest.
Moon and Stars: Midseason. 11° brix. Seeds from my garden in 2021.
Which makes me think the one I found so tasty from my garden (Israeli melon) was likely 13 or 14 degrees brix. It just seems sweeter because there is no bitterness or tartness that it has to offset. And, of course, because juicy fruits tend to have a lot of water in them.
Does that help?
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Excellent List, Thank you! Amy Goldman is an excellent Author. How was her melon book by the way?
Delicious 51 , t’s nice how it matures in 85 Days, Kajari melons Mature in 60-70 Days. I wonder how fast LoftHouse Melons Did?
Korean Melon 12° brix!? Oh hell nah, the Grocery Store ones were barely sweet (If at all). It’s so not sweet, it’s used as a veggie (Or fully ripe cucumber). I was expecting brix to be like 2° or 3°.
Golden Jenny Almost a Bush Variety!? Incredible! I Knew Acorn & Zuchinni weren’t the only cucurbitaceae that could do that. Could it possible to have a Bush Form Cucumber?
Melon-f105-8573 is the sweetest highest Brix melon I know. It Ranges from 16° -19° Brix. It’s a hybrid melon & would be perfect for landrace. Problem is I have no idea how to order.
Interesting, Grocery Store Honeydews are still sweeter than Grocery Store Cantaloupes. But don’t they ripen at the grocery store? I’ve noticed the Honeydews with Wrinkles were sweeter.
Wow! 14° brix is the highest I’ve seen from Watermelons. And It’s a GROCERY STORE WATERMELON!? Wait was this the sterotypical Seedfull Big Red Variety PLU Code 4031?
Yeah, I agree with you about the Korean melon. I was so excited about it, and bought seeds. Then I bought one from the grocery store. It was crisp (which I like with apples, but not with melons) and not very sweet.
@H.B, if I’m remembering correctly, you like melons that are only lightly sweet with a mild flavor, right? If so, Korean melon may be right up your alley. There are supposed to be lots of small fruits on a plant, too, so that may be useful for portion size.
There are bush varieties of watermelons. I know I have a seed packet that says “Bush Sugar Baby,” anyway. I haven’t tried planting it yet! It’s probably a trait that’s possible to find and breed into melons, as well.
As for grocery store melons and watermelons, from what I understand, they’re very often underripe. Both because it’s more convenient to pick everything on the plant at once, and because slightly underripe melons and watermelons ship more easily and store longer.
There’s also, quite honestly, the possibility that a farmer who’s going to be paid $1 a watermelon, if that, needs to harvest everything quickly, and just doesn’t have the time to check for all the signs for peak flavor. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect them to.
Plus some varieties are very hard to tell if they’re perfectly ripe or only sufficiently ripe. If some of those varieties are what grocery stores sell, then yes, inevitably, a lot of them will be underipe and have a mediocre flavor.
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Yep, I’m one of those weirdos 
. I like what I like. In this case, I like mildly sweet melons, among them melons I might fully expect to meet culling criteria for other growers. If I had a stunningly sweet melon that grew effortlessly I would save and share, but likely have few compelling reasons to try and tip the scales in favor of this phenotype.
I think at some point individual mixes will start forming further refinements of agreed-upon selection criteria, with the help of some kind of benchmarks for the criteria. Seems likely these benchmarks would raise the possibility that we’re talking about a similar thing in a similar way.
Yep! It’ll be neat to see the Going to Seed mixes keep evolving.
One thing you might do, if you like only mildly sweet melons, is to plan to harvest the very sweet ones a few days underripe. Most likely they will be only mildly sweet that way.