A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening heirloom seeds vs hybrids

I wish to use heirloom seeds with the idea that I will harvest and save my own seeds for each succeeding year. I thought this would work forever, basically.
I understood that hybrid seeds would produce wonderful plants, but the seeds could not be dried and saved from year to year.

I was told heirloom plant seeds will greatly diminish in quality of vegetable produced after 3-4 years unless they are crossed with someone else's seed. The idea was that using the same plants for seed year after year is like reusing the same genetic pool and future plants will have defective traits.

I'm pretty disappointed.

Can you tell me the truth about using heirloom vs hybrid seeds?
Must I buy new seeds every year?
thanks for your help and opinions,
Jo

seed from hybrid vegetables won't produce true in the next years. Unwanted cross-pollination causes a 'running out' of your seeds as well. So if you really want the 'true' veggie or such then you have to re-buy every year, sorry.

But that doesn't mean that you can't save the seed anyway, sometimes you might be surprised on what you get

I find hybrids give a better look, higher quality and are more disease resistant but the heirloom has the better taste.

thank you. Jo

If heirloom seeds are only pollinated by other heirloom seeds will they produce good plants year after year? (My garden is medium sized in the middle of/between two orchards.)

How did people manage to grow enough garden crops to feed themselves before hybrids were developed?

Jo

Hybrids can pollinate heirlooms...bees and insects help cross contaminate also.

My grandparents said that before people only had one variety of whatever they planted so nothing could cross. They planted one kind of tomato, one kind of pea, one kind of bean...etc...so the seed stayed true. All the neighbors did the same...so there wasn't even a chance of cross pollination to happen.... My grandparents raised 17 kids on a farm..and they didn't care how ugly the tomatoes looked as long as they tasted great so I guess there wasn't much need for hybrids.

it's not true that heirlooms lose their genetic and/or desireable qualities, but tamara has a good hamndle on this...heirlooms, stabilized varieties, if not crossed, retain the same qualities year after year after year, that is one reason they have been retained.
Hybrids are designated as F1, meaning the first generation after a cross
there are then F2's, F3's, etc., meaning that the resultant, often desireable, qualitites have been chosen for, and seed saved. Genetics amounts largely to this...within the first year, the dominant traits of one variety, crossed with another, will exhibit only the dominant traits that each variety has.
This generation is a true hybrid....it has traits which are called heterogenous, which means it has traits from both parents, it actually contains all of the genetic coding of both parents. Hybrids have a unique quality called hybrid vigor, which I don't fully understand, but they are heterogenous as opposed to homogenous, meaning that they contain all the genetic material of both parents, and display, or have the qualities, that are the most dominant in each parent. This can be very good, and an F1 means that it is the immediate result of parent x and parent y, and actually has all of the genetics present that both parents posessed. The next generation will have more "segregation."
each seed has only the genes from a part of parent x, and a part of parent y .
It is then up to the gardener to select for the qualities he/she wants, out of possibly 8 separate distinct genetic traits. These, once selected, must be selected for again, and again, through at least 8 generations, to produce a "stabile" or fully segregated set of genetics.
So to put it simply, an heirloom, or OP, open pollenated, variety, is one which will produce true so long as no other genes are introduced.
a "hybrid" is typically considered to be the first generation, or F1, cross of two varieties, with certainty in the offspring, due to expressing only the dominant genetic traits, no gamble in generation 1.
Hybrids have gotten a bad reputation because they are often the result of breeding for the supermarket, and taste takes a second place to appearance, shipping, shelf life, uniformity, while taste is neglected.
My fascination with tomatoes was with the tsste, which I found lacking in hybrids. I have sense discovered that numerous growers hybridize tomatoes and othe crops for maximum flavor as well as disease resistance, etc. These rarely show up in the broad market.

You know Dave, you're right about the 'buying' tomatoes. I've only once seen some 'Brandywine's' at the local store...they are the only heirlooms I have ever came across in the supermarket.

My advice is not to worry about it...you can seeds at all local stores and they are all great, we also have a seed~trade topic here in the forum, save the expensive heirloom seed buying for the veggies that you are most fond of...such as tomatoes...you won't be sorry

You could also just grow one brand of veggie at a time/per year to try get true seeds from your heirlooms but be aware that those bees travel through everyone's gardens and cross pollination is still very possible.

Are hybrids the same as GMOs?

Are hybrids the same as GMOs?

No, Hybrid plants aren't genetically modified. A hybrid is a plant that has been cross pollinated by two different plants in order to create the best features from each "parent" plant.

No, GMO's are a different thing.
GMO seeds aren't out there for the public, as far as I know. Plants either. GMO refers to gene splicing, actually takin material at the cellular level and putting it into the nucleus of another cell....frankenstein stuff.
hybridizing is just putting the pollen of one plant into the flower of another, with different getetics. I only know a little of how it works. Each of us, for
instance, is the product of 2 sets of genes, our mother's, and our father's. Inheritance dictates that we have a combination of both sets of genes. We're basically all hybrids.
Some plants, tomatoes, for instance, are self fertile, they pollenate, or the correct term in their case, is pollenize, their own flowers. The genetics are identical. When a different variety's genes are introduced through accident or pollenation by a grower, there are 2 sets of genes in the seed that results.
GMO is taking genes that never existed in a species, and using scientific means to put it directly into the preferred spot in the genetic code to produce one known outcome. 2 major results I know of so far, are corn which produces it's own pesticide in order to kill attacking catterpillars, and another crop which I believe is wheat which is not killed when Roundup is sprayed.
There are not many foods yet where GMO or genetically modified organisms enter the human food chain. The term GMO is misleading, though, because genetic modification happens any time mankind manipulates something expecting a desired result, breeding 2 plants, or cattle, or whatever, is modifying the genetics. It doesn't require splicing in DNA into the genes of vastly different organisms.

Anyway, I feel like I should qualify me remarks, there is nothing wrong at all with growing a hybrid, it only means that it is the product of a cross in the immediate generation before, of 2 varieties. Say, the heirloom tomato Brandywine and another heirloom called Mortgage Lifter. Someone wants certain traits and crosses the 2. In that first generation, all traits known to be dominant can be seen. That means the seed of that crossing will produce 100% reliable, known expression of the dominant traits of each one.
Future generations allow recessive triats to come out.
It's more complicated than I know how to tell, I haven't read aall about it, but there is nothing at all wrong with hybrids except that it sometimes means traits like appearance are selected before flavor. Most hybrid tomatoes we can buy seed ro plants for suck-if you know what I mean. Other produce is selected for taste primarily, YAY! Good job, if you ask me.
I grow heirloom tomatoes, and some peppers, and I trade all the time in order to find new, tasty things.
I mostly buy seed for everything else, from cabbage to spinach to watermelons, (geez, I should grow some watermelons!) and I do look first for heirlooms, but, when I see a hybrid that has amazing claims of taste or heat tolerance, I buy it. If time allows this year, I will attempt to cross some tomatoes, it's easily done, and what I'd have in mind is excellent taste, 2 excellent tasting tomatoes crossed.

I can't believe that I have read books and magazine articles and tried to figure things out and I have really learned more in one day on this site than I did from all the other ways! I am so happy to be here! (Actually, let me change that to "I am so happy you all are here!" ) Jo

...and we are happy to have you here with us as well.

I like addressing straightforward questions, jonesy, when I have knowledge to offer. i'll say this, what i posted is, I'm pretty sure, correct. My understanding of genetics comes from botany 101 and online discussions of tomatoes. I have tons of questions concerning other crops, which I have asked here and there without responses.
Simply put, heirloom seed will hold it's merits for a good while, if not infinitely, when it is grown and seeds collected without introduction of new genetic material.
There's a lot of discussion about various plants needing pollen donors, like sweet cherries or pears, in order to get a crop.
Find a source for a better umderstanding of all thetangled interactions and consequences, and i'll send you a free selection of heirloom tomato seeds!

That is some great info, Peppereater! Thank you so much!

Eva, you're welcome. Tamara had some good input, too.
I'll take praise whenever it's offered!! thanx

Oops! I read it as one post.. Thanks, Tamara!