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Seed savings, hybrids, and all that

I wanted to do some rambling about this seed saving stuff. With this
disclaimer: my knowledge is _all_ from book learning, and in fact is
mostly from a single book, _Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties_, by
Carol Deppe. But some of the things in that book seemed relevant to
the issue of seed saving, so I thought I'd try to describe those
concepts, and _hope_ that I both understand them, and communicate
them, correctly. :) Pardon the subject headings, but the way I run
on, they're probably the only way to add any structure to this
email:

- Crosses and why they're (usually) bad

An open-pollinated variety of plant is one that, if it's pollinated
by itself or another plant of the same variety, will produce seed
that, when grown, produces a plant like its parents.

A hybrid is usually a result of crossing two open-pollinated
varieties - the pollen from one plant is used to fertilize the flower
from another. The resulting seed is hybrid seed, and it will produce
a consistent result when it is planted.

However, even though that first generation is consistent, the plants
in it might not be any good for your purposes. And it gets worse -
when you gather seed from that first generation of plants resulting
from the cross, and plant it, the resulting plants will likely be
different from one another, with different plants showing a different
mix of characteristics from the parents. As a breeding experiment,
this is cool, but as a source of  dependable food, it's not good -
you have no idea what you'll get. That's why planting seed from
hybrids isn't recommended, and why you want to keep the plants that
you're saving seed from from crossing.

- Breeding types

In the book, plants get classified as "outbreeders" and "inbreeders".
Outbreeders are usually/frequently pollinated by other plants - the
seed of outbreeders will often have two separate plants as parents.
Inbreeders are usually pollinated by themselves - the seed of
inbreeders usually have only one parent plant, which acts as both
"mother" and "father".

- Inbreeders

Beans are an example of an inbreeder - bean flowers have both male
and female parts and are capable of pollinating themselves, and the
flower is usually closed until the pollination occurs. So, a bean
almost always pollinates itself. Tomatoes are also inbreeders.

- Outbreeders

Squash is an example of an outbreeder. The flowers are either male or
female, so a single flower can't pollinate itself. While a bee might
visit multiple flowers of the same squash plant in succession, it's
also quite likely to visit flowers of a different plant, so pollen
from one plant will fertilize flowers of another plant. Corn is also
an outbreeder.

- Seed saving

The conclusion for seed saving, IMO, is that inbreeders are going to
be much easier to save seeds from than outbreeders, because they have
a natural tendency _not_ to cross, and crossing is what you're trying
to avoid. I'm lazy, I don't depend on my garden for my food or my
livelihood,  and I find garden surprises fun, so I would probably not
bother much about keeping the seed of inbreeders pure - I'd figure
that most of it will breed true, and any accidental crosses might be
fun to grow out.

- That book

I really strongly recommend the book. The author does a wonderful job
of persuading one that breeding vegetables really _is_ a worthwhile
pursuit for amateurs, even if they can't compete with the
professionals in education and resources. That professional wants to
breed a tomato that can be grown anywhere in the country, ripens all
at once, has a skin tough enough for mechanical harvesting, stands up
to a whole list of diseases including some that you probably don't
have, and can be transported halfway across the country. He has to
compromise flavor for a whole batch of goals that small gardeners
don't even care about. So if you're going for the best-tasting tomato
that can be grown in your little corner of the world, you might well
be able to produce a better product than anything a commercial
breeder could offer you.

Martha


M. Wilson
mart@best.com


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