seed saving in a tight garden- will OP progeny be true? - Page 2

Tormato · January 22, 2015

I've never heard anyone say that before. My experience with double-fruited tomatoes and summer squash is that I save seed seperately from each side of the fruit. My results have been that I rarely have something cross (that I know of). When I do have something cross, every seed planted from that side of the fruit produces something other than what the parent plant was. The "other side" seed always seemed stable/ not crossed. I don't know what to say any further.

**carolyn137** · January 22, 2015

I have a different perspective that differs from what both Joseph and Gary posted.

To me and to many of my tomato friends a 5% cross pollination means that statistically 5/100 varieties grown will be crossed, regardless of how many plants for each variety.

Which is why if one has just one plant seeds should be saved from many fruits, better still is more than one plant and save seeds from several fruits from both plants, etc.

That way one dilutes out any crossed seed.

When I was listing hundreds of varieties in the SSE Yearbooks I sometimes would have sent out maybe 2000 seeds/variety before an offtype was found. And same for my seed offers here at Tville.

Carolyn

rsg2001 · January 24, 2015

I have tempted fate on crosses. In more than 20 years of growing tomatoes in fairly tight-space conditions, I have only seen one unintended cross, and because of my garden records I think I figured it out. It occurred in my Queens NY (former) garden, evidently. (Now living n the Hudson Valley.) I had saved seeds late in the season from a Cherokee Purple from 2011 that was in a 3 foot x 3 foot container along with Costoluto Genovese and a yellow variety. I planted seeds from in in my 2013 garden upstate and one of the plants generated something I hadn't planted before. It looked like a cross between Costoluto and Cherokee Purple. It was shaped and sized like CP, with regular leaves, but had ribbing on the top resembling Costoluto which of course is red, and was kind of an orangey-brown color. I saved quite a few seeds from that (and still have a lot of the 2011 ones)but didn't grow it last year. Now I have a lot more space in raised beds in the new place to plant, and also rented a small plot in a community garden and plan to try the original F1s again, as well as the F2s, to see what comes out.

January 22, 2015	#17
carolyn137 Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a Posts: 21,169	I have a different perspective that differs from what both Joseph and Gary posted. To me and to many of my tomato friends a 5% cross pollination means that statistically 5/100 varieties grown will be crossed, regardless of how many plants for each variety. Which is why if one has just one plant seeds should be saved from many fruits, better still is more than one plant and save seeds from several fruits from both plants, etc. That way one dilutes out any crossed seed. When I was listing hundreds of varieties in the SSE Yearbooks I sometimes would have sent out maybe 2000 seeds/variety before an offtype was found. And same for my seed offers here at Tville. Carolyn __________________ Carolyn

January 22, 2015	#16
Tormato Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: MA Posts: 4,971	I've never heard anyone say that before. My experience with double-fruited tomatoes and summer squash is that I save seed seperately from each side of the fruit. My results have been that I rarely have something cross (that I know of). When I do have something cross, every seed planted from that side of the fruit produces something other than what the parent plant was. The "other side" seed always seemed stable/ not crossed. I don't know what to say any further.

January 24, 2015	#18
rsg2001 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: New York Zone 6 Posts: 479	I have tempted fate on crosses. In more than 20 years of growing tomatoes in fairly tight-space conditions, I have only seen one unintended cross, and because of my garden records I think I figured it out. It occurred in my Queens NY (former) garden, evidently. (Now living n the Hudson Valley.) I had saved seeds late in the season from a Cherokee Purple from 2011 that was in a 3 foot x 3 foot container along with Costoluto Genovese and a yellow variety. I planted seeds from in in my 2013 garden upstate and one of the plants generated something I hadn't planted before. It looked like a cross between Costoluto and Cherokee Purple. It was shaped and sized like CP, with regular leaves, but had ribbing on the top resembling Costoluto which of course is red, and was kind of an orangey-brown color. I saved quite a few seeds from that (and still have a lot of the 2011 ones)but didn't grow it last year. Now I have a lot more space in raised beds in the new place to plant, and also rented a small plot in a community garden and plan to try the original F1s again, as well as the F2s, to see what comes out.