One of the advantages of breeding melons (cantaloupes and other specialty types) is that you get to try a lot of different flavors. Of course, you have to be prepared to bite into some bad fruit on occasion. Here are some field plots of specialty melons that have been neatly trained to permit easy data collection

Specialty melons of the canary and casaba type being selected for high yield, early maturity, high sugar content, and disease resistant foliage

Field plots of watermelon on raised beds covered with black plastic mulch

There are a lot of different genes controlling watermelon fruit size and shape. Genes for rind pattern produce different shades of green, and different stripe patterns and widths

Students on the watermelon breeding project learn to evaluate fruit size, fruit shape, flesh color, rind pattern, rind toughness, flesh firmness, and flesh sweetness