Re: Saving seeds from Hybrids
Pat,
Although Tomato seeds are normally self-pollinated, you could have had some
fruit pollinated by bees who brought in pollen from other tomato plants.
Sungold is a hybrid variety (F1) so it's not predictable what the progeny
will be like. Some may resemble the original plant but others may revert
back to one of the parents of Sungold. That's the problem with trying to
collect seed from hybrids. It could be that your neighbour just got lucky
with the few plants that came up.
Dehybridizing can be done but it usually takes about 7 generations before
the seed that you collect produces a stable line. Until then, you can have
all kinds of variations pop up.
Arzeena
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----- Original Message -----
From: <pdanielak@bluecrab.org>
To: <veggie-list@eskimo.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 6:23 AM
Subject: Re: Saving seeds from Hybrids
> Hi,
> I have done a lot of seed-saving from cherry tomatoes. The two that come
to
> mind immediately are yellow pear and sun gold. My results from seed saving
> were very good -- the fruit has been perfectly formed and the taste very
good.
> I have a neighbor who never plants cherry tomatoes and yet has a garden
> full of Sun Golds every year, volunteers from some plants someone gave
here
> some years ago. Her Sun Golds are always wonderful.
> When I get volunteers, they are not wonderful, and I wonder if that is
> because I planted so many different varieties of cherry and other tomatoes
> (a couple of years ago I had nine different varieties of cherry
> tomatoes). When I save seed from these varieties, I do it fairly early in
> the season and choose the most beautiful, perfect fruit to save.
> I think this year I will go back to just Sun Gold and Supersweet 100's.
> These have been my favorites for taste. The yellow pear are pretty but
> don't seem to have as much flavor (even when grown from store-bought seed
> or seedlings).
>
> Pat
> Zone 7, Maryland
>
>
