Saving Seed

[Volvo]

Okay i know this question has arisen on a few other occasions but got into a "Yes-No-Yes-No"debate the other night with my BIL that it didnt matter that one didnt save seed from the very first and lowest and largest fruit of the pick and he differed to agree and reckons that most all the older greek generation will insist that one should keep the seed from YES!! the first and lowest as well as the best of fruit and one must also let it overipen on the bush if one wants good seed to parent...
If so i have done it wrong in the past and so long as the fruit looked good, ripe and tasted good i kept seed from that bush and didnt worry about size...
Has perception changed or is this still so??..
Cheers

[Mantis]

Dunno Volvo. Maybe the first fruit thing is to do with a lessor chance of crossing with other varieties. Also letting them get over ripe on the plant may be similar to the fermenting that we do to get the gel off the seeds.

[WVTomatoMan]

Here's what I've been told or read:
- Save seeds from the healthiest/best plant.
- It is not necessary to save seed from the first fruit, the largest fruit, etc.
- Ripe is fine for saving seed, a fruit that is over rippened is not necessary. Seed from unrippened fruit is not ready (fully developed) and therefore should not be used.

In the old days people believed you had to save fruit from the biggest, best fruit and did not select by plant. Then Mr. Livingston came along and selected by plant and the rest is tomato history as they say.

I don't save seed from the first fruit. I live in the country where there are a lot of sweat bees and therefore wish to minimize the possibility of cross pollination.

Well that's my take on it for what it's worth (not much).

Randy

[dice]

I always eat the first fruit. I tell myself it is
to make sure the flavor is up to standards,
but it is really simple enthusiasm.

To actually separate the good flavors from
the flavors that do not justify saving seeds
from that plant, one needs to eat a few more,
just to be sure. The first fruit can be odd-tasting,
compared to the typical flavor of fruit from that
cultivar, especially in those where the flavor
of the ripe fruit is particularly weather-sensitive.
Despite the difference in taste, if neither the
first nor later fruit have been crossed, the seeds
from both will have the same genes.

I suppose one might ferment the first fruit to
insure that one actually gets some seeds, even
if some varmint or other accident of nature
destroys the crop before any more fruit
ripen. (I should probably change my habit to
only eat half of the first fruit and ferment the
rest, just in case. Or separate the seeds and
gel from it before eating it, and ferment those.)

Best plant or best fruit? Odd that these would not
be seeds from the same plant. If you save seeds
from the single best fruit, you do at least get the
genes that produced that fruit (which is the whole
point of growing them in the first place), but saving
seeds from fruit of the best plant gives the plants
in future generations a better chance of surviving
to produce fruit in seasons where they have problems
(weather, disease, pests, soil, etc).

[Trudi]

I save seeds from the best looking fruits on the best looking plants. I do take a keen eye to the seedlings and later on the garden and rogue out all those that aren't hardiest or have little disease resistance. So far my feedback has been excellent.