Can You "Isolate" a variety without "Bagging&

[Noreaster]

Have seen reference to "isolating" heirloom/open-pollinated tomatoes vs. bagging, in order to keep true to form.

Is this possible?

Also, if a commercial seed company doesn't state that they "bag" varieties while growing......is it safe to assume they don't ?

Thanks !

Noreaster

[carolyn137]

Have seen reference to "isolating" heirloom/open-pollinated tomatoes vs. bagging, in order to keep true to form.

Is this possible?

*****

Yes, and one does so by geographic isolation, but if bagging is done correctly it's the best way to ensure that no X pollination will occur.

It really depends, I think, on how many plants/varieties you're growing each year and what your purpose is in saving seeds.

For home use you really don't have to be so strict about it but if trading or listing at SSE or making seed offers, you might want to think more about it.

OP tomato blossoms self pollenize over 90-95% of the time, so even with close planting one usually gets pure seed. So if I say that my X pollination rate is about 5% it means that of seed saved from 100 varieties about 5 would be expected to be X pollinated. But this also depends on the type and level of insect pollinator activity in any given area as well as whether or not the blossoms of some varieties have extruded stigmas which can lead to increased X pollination.

If you Google this subject you'll find all kinds of recommendations for how far apart varieties should be isolated.

I used to grow my plants in rows about 150 ft long, with 4 ft spacing between plants in the same row and 5 ft between rows, and as i said above my X pollination rate.,on average, was about 5%. But with several hundred varieties listed in the SSE Yearbook I can remember only about 5 total that turned out to be X pollinated.

The problem is that if you chose 10 fruits to rpocess for seed and only one fruit has a few X pollinated seeds you might never see that until a hundred or moere plants are grown out from that seed.

(Also, if a commercial seed company doesn't state that they "bag" varieties while growing......is it safe to assume they don't ?)

Of the retail companies that sell primarily OP varieties i don't know of even one that bags blossoms, of those that produce their own seed. Just too many plants to work with re bagging.

But you have to rememebr that depending on the company they may produce none of their own seed, they may produce some of it and they may subcontract out for seed production and they may buy off the shelf, or a combo of any of those methods of aquiring seed.

The best way to know which companies have the best track records is to keep a list of which ones did best in that regard. And at another message site I did just that for three years in a row and thus we recognized which companies seemed to do best re pure seed.

So you have to assess what your purpose is for saving seed which will determine HOW you're going to go about it.

[elkwc36]

Carolyn and any others with input,
I want to try to save seeds next summer for myself and maybe a few offers. I'm planning single rows with vegatables on both sides and 4 ft. spacings. I will keep the next closest tomato row at least 20 ft. away. We don't have much insect pollinator activity here. I may not have time to bag. Should this be ok or do I need to consider spacings further apart? Thanks for all input. Jay

[travis]

http://www.newhopeseed.com/vegetable...ussian_red.jpg

http://www.newhopeseed.com/vegetable...s/favorite.jpg

http://www.newhopeseed.com/vegetable...ard_german.jpg

http://www.newhopeseed.com/vegetable...t_champion.jpg

... for example.

PV

[carolyn137]

Should this be ok or do I need to consider spacings further apart? Thanks for all input. Jay

*********

Jay, you aren't going to like my answer but the only way to know if it's OK as you've described is to do it and see what the results are from saved seed. There's no way that anyone, including yourself, can predict anything very definite. But it sounds to me like with tomato varieties 20 ft apart and buffered it's a good step in the right direction.

[Noreaster]

Thanks for responding, Carolyn......before reading your response I thought "Isolation" may have meant something significantly more than what you gave as an example.....that perhaps there was something other than "Bagging" that could be more easily controlled and SOMEWHAT close to reliable.

I beg to differ, but logically, I cannot understand that if I myself ran plants (as you did) at least 4 feet apart, and beds 5 feet apart, that it would make any difference whatsoever, vs. let's say 3 feet apart and 4 feet bed-to-bed.......or even 10 feet apart, and 15 feet from bed-to-bed !! In addition, if I remember correctly, you would grow 100-250 different varieties each year as well !Well, I'd like to grow tons of varieties as well !

We've closely observed many garden insects including several types of bees, wasps, yellow-jacks, other flying insects travelling from flower-to-flower in our yard, and birds such as Hummingbirds jumping from here to there. None of these seem to prefer one flower over the other. Could be tomatoes/peppers/lima beans/flowery bushes, whatever.......one to the other, just give me more, I'm starving attitude.

Anyway, just searched Google to find out what the foraging range in any given day might be for example with a typical "honeybee"...a detailed study indicated normal daily foraging ranged from over 200 feet (MINIMUM) up to over 1800 feet....and usually, quite a long distance from their nest to begin with.

Perhaps a commercial seed company, or their outside supplier can keep THIS distance separating heirloom/op varieties to reduce your estimated 5% cross potential otherwise...but doubt very few (if any) individuals can/would even consider this.

In conclusion, no matter how close my plants are to each other, in garden beds and across from bed to bed, I see no truly logical reason to have faith in any varieties "isolation", unless it's far, FAR away from other of my varieties, AS WELL AS far FAR away from any neighbor's OP heirloom as well. Not a few FEET from one to the other, but perhaps at least 1/3 MILE, just for honeybees alone. Other insects may forage further than that (don't know) !!!

Thanks for letting me vent this firm "isolation" belief......and if I'm missing something here, would love to be yelled at and corrected ! If not, will just keep growing the way I always have (with no bagging and no specific plant variety distancing rule) and allow myself to expect 5% crossover that I think you say you have....no matter WHAT separation distances are, since they seem to mean so little to insects.

Amen,

Noreaster

[barkeater]

Nor'easter, if you keep them 400 feet apart you should be safe

The insects and bees should visit so many flowers in between, there won't likely be enough, if any, pollen left from their first tomato flower visit to cross pollinate the next.

Of course, if both are located in a beeline to their hive, with no other flowers in between, all bets are off.

In other words, bagging is the only 100% solution, as you've already deduced 8)

[carolyn137]

Barkeater wrote:
In other words, bagging is the only 100% solution, as you've already deduced

*********

And as I already said above.

The imsects most active in tomato X pollination are Halictid, aka sweatbees, not other bees.

There's an excellent article at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange on NCP ( natural cross pollination) by Dr Jeff McCormack if anyone is interested in reading more about NCP.

He is one of many who also gives suggested isolation distances, that is, those distances that have worked well for him, b'c as I inferred above, really, no two situations are the same.

[Tania]

some sweatbee pictures

http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74/sweat_bees_halictidae

and a useful link to an article about Isolation Distances for tomatoes:

http://www.southernexposure.com/isol...omatoes.p.html

[barkeater]

Well, that southern exposure info has convinced me - I'm bagging from now on.

Even with my beloved Ramapo, which tasted INCREDIBLE from Carolyn's F3 seeds, how do I know that the F4 I planted, although they LOOKED exactly right, weren't crossed?

I attributed the decline in flavor to last summer's weather, but was it?

I still have some F2 Ramapo seed from 2003 Carolyn sent me, so I am going to back up, and grow some out while bagging to insure future purity. I'll compare it to the F4 and F5 and see what happens.

[Noreaster]

Would any member of Seed Saver Exchange know exactly how THAT operation operates to prevent cross pollination? One would think that with their stated goals of preservation, that bagging would have to be their ONLY means of doing exactly that. (The other one I wonder about is Sandhill company, also preservation oriented, with SO MANY varieties......how exactly might they "isolate" in terms of distance? ).

Or Canadian Exchange? Or even the Southern Seed Exposure (a commercial company) ?

Found the McCormack "study" to be all over the lot and inconclusive......did note,Carolyn that he seemed to slightly favor TWENTY FEET between varieties......not five ! Then referencing info from 1942 ? Yikes! Expected a more scientific result than "asking tomato breeders" and speaking to family heirloom growers, etc.

Seems to me that unless gardeners truly protect their tomato crops from the force of nature that WILL invade their garden (to one degree or another), they might consider that each time their seeds are dispersed elsewhere there is a BIG warning on a piece of paper that it is "likely some of these seeds are not really what I claim" due to uncontrolled flying insects.

To date, only true means I've read about is BAGGING.
Not general conclusions of "this number of yards" vs. "this number of feet", vs. "this percent" vs. "that percent". Back to my real original question of ISOLATION....I'm beginning to believe that ANY guideline is completely ridiculous (and as a practical matter, undoable).

Those who refuse to bag, including myself......probably should never distribute "heirloom"seeds, if we ever claim to have a goal of heirloom "preservation"......over time, the variety will become indeed not at all what the world started with.......may be similar, but at whatever % nature changes via insects......you can't pretend that it is what all commercial operations say it is.

Changing bed-to-bed "isolation" from 4 feet to 20feet to 100 feet, will NEVER return Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter to what it was 100 years ago....let's stop pretending !

Noreaster

[travis]

"Changing bed-to-bed 'isolation' (distances) will NEVER return Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter to what it was 100 years ago ..."

So, exactly what was Radiator Charlie's ML in 1906?


"Would any member of Seed Saver Exchange know exactly how THAT operation operates to prevent cross pollination?"

SSE uses various practices and combinations thereof including geographic isolation, timed plantings, structural screen enclosures, and intermediate plantings to intercept pollinators within closer isolations.

Here is something you may want to read: http://www.plbr.cornell.edu/psi/Basi...on%20Teri2.pdf

PV

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by Noreaster

Would any member of Seed Saver Exchange know exactly how THAT operation operates to prevent cross pollination?

SSE exhaustively describes in great detail exactly how their operations work in the various publications they put out.

[Lee]

Those who refuse to bag, including myself......probably should never distribute "heirloom"seeds, if we ever claim to have a goal of heirloom "preservation"......over time, the variety will become indeed not at all what the world started with.......may be similar, but at whatever % nature changes via insects......you can't pretend that it is what all commercial operations say it is.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is to test your seed.
Before distributing seeds from my rare Orange Heirloom variety, I grow them out to ensure they grow true to form.
So, I would claim this is also an acceptable method to ensure preservation of a specific variety. And this also has the effect of culling the rare, but possible genetic mutations.

Lee

[Noreaster]

PV,

Can you advise a bit more about "screened enclosures".

Perhaps that's easier to do than bagging ?

Thanks!

Noreaster