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PunkRotten
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Hybrid Tomatoes seeds

Hi,

Are seeds you collected from a hybrid plant useless? How do people have hybrid seeds (like you see in commercial packets) that will grow true to the hybrid?

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rainbowgardener
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No the seeds are not useless, unless you insist on having next generation plants that are exactly like the parent plants. I use seeds from hybrid plants all the time, I just don't count on them being still exactly the same. Some times it is fun and interesting. I save seeds from my hybrid petunias and sometimes from the next generations. I get all different colors and markings of petunias that way (although if you keep the generations going, it seems like they tend to fade out to white eventually).

How they do it commercially is to have a huge field full of plant clones, reproduced by cuttings, etc. So all the plants in the field are genetically identical and the only plants around them to pollinate them are genetically identical. On a smaller scale you can bag flowers and hand-pollinate.

If you save seeds from a hybrid tomato, the tomato you grow the next year may not be exactly the same, but for sure it will still be a tomato! :) (And basically the same kind, I.e. if you were growing cherry tomatoes, you won't get a full sized one from it).

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soil
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I grow some hybrid heirlooms( two heirlooms crossed) and have been for a few years, its fun selecting from traits you like out of all the different tomatoes. eventually you stabilize it and have an OP(open pollinated) variety.

and like rainbow said, ive yet to get a bad tomato. some were not as good as the others, but none of them were in-eatable.

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PunkRotten
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Well I have some Jet star and Micro tom tomatoes. But I am interested in stabilizing the micro toms. I think it would be easier because they are small and take up little space. And I could probably do atleast 3 generations in a year. Thing is I don;t really know much about cross breeding, hybridizing, stabilizing hybrids etc.


Eventually one day I'd like to experiment by crossing some tomatoes. Has anyone stabilized a hybrid before?

carolyn137
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Location: upstate NY, zone 5

Punk, I happen to be looking for something via Google and followed the link to this site.

You and I have already discussed Micro Tom at another message site and it already is OP. And I just posted a long explanation of the difference between OP's and hybrids for you at the same place.

Jet Star is a hybrid, Micro-Tom is not.

Carolyn



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