'Odesa Yellow' Melon

Cucumis melo subsp. melo Origin: Odesa, Ukraine Improvement status: Landrace Seeds per packet: ~20 Germination tested 10/2024: 80% Life cycle: Annual EFN INTRODUCTION. 'Odesa Yellow' is the name we've given to an unnamed landrace melon collected by an American visitor to a farmers market in Odesa, Ukraine, in 1986. Described as a local type by collector Kate Rogers Gessart, it's a yellow-skinned melon with pale greenish flesh and a lovely sweet flavor. Great-grandparents of EFN co-founder Nate Kleinman emigrated to the US from Odesa in 1905, so he has been trying to find as many crop varieties from Odesa as he can — and this is the first melon he's found. It came to us from the USDA's National Plant Germplasm System, which has maintained it since Gessart donated it in the 1980s. This has proven to be a relatively easy melon to grow, though it seems to have a limited harvest window (just a couple days from peak ripeness to over-ripeness). These seeds were produced by Nate at the EFN fla