Paperboy
Newly Registered
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2010 9:44 pm
Location: Riviera Beach, FL

Heirloom tomato seeds and herb seeds to trade.

From sunny South Florida. Avid gardener and fisherman. I have the following seeds to trade:

Super Beefstake
Beefstake
Brandywine, ( Red and Pink)
Better Boy ( hybrid)
Big Boy ( hybrid)
San Marzano ( Roma tomato)
Cherokee Purple
Bradley
Early Wonder
Ace 55
Sweet 100 ( cherry tomato)
Big Beef
Beefmaster
German Johnson ( potato leaf - grows really fast)

herbs:

Basil ( green and purple leaf)
Genovese Basil
Sweet basil
Catnip
lettuce leaf Basil
Box basil ( grows in bushy ball shape)
Lemon Basil

Love to trade any and all if interest. Please reply. Thank you
Last edited by Paperboy on Sat Jun 19, 2010 4:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

garden5
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Posts: 3062
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:40 pm
Location: ohio

Welcome to the Helpful Gardener, are you sure that the plants you saved seed from did not cross-pollinate with any other varieties? How far apart were they from other varieties?

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rainbowgardener
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Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

Hi Paperboy - Have you noticed we have a whole seed swapping section? :D That might be a better place to post this request.

If you check this thread

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23659

kimbledawn says she has heirloom tomato seeds for trade, unspecified variety.

And indeed, welcome to the Forum. Hope you find it friendly and helpful and you find what you are looking for.

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farmerlon
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Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2010 11:42 am
Location: middle Tennessee

garden5 wrote:Welcome to the Helpful Gardener, are you sure that the plants you saved seed from did not cross-pollinate with any other varieties? How far apart were they from other varieties?
I have been told that it is actually very difficult for tomatoes to cross-pollinate. Even if they're planted side-by-side and "rubbing shoulders", it's very rare for tomatoes to cross, unless they are helped along by human intervention.
That's what (I think) I know. :lol: If someone knows different, I'd love to hear about it.

TZ -OH6
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Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:27 pm
Location: Mid Ohio

Rarely cross pollinate is a relative term. I would say that a given flower is usually cross pollinated, but to a low degree.

There is an often stated 2%-5% statistic based on a statement in this article.... That would be 2-5 seeds per 100 out of any one fruit.

https://www.southernexposure.com/isolation-distance-tomatoes.p.html

But note that the range of goes up to 47%.

A tomatoe's flower is designed for self pollination with the help of vibrations from wind or bees that loosen a cloud of pollen around the stigma. It is pretty effective. For instance, last year I crossed an open brandywine flower (open for less than 48 hours) to Black Krim by heavily coating the stigma with BK pollen, and the result of the grow out was an eye ball estimated 80%-90% self pollination (before I got to the flower), but on the other hand, I have tested many fruits at differnt times of the year and have found an overall cross pollination rate of about 20% of seed (range from 0%-40%).

You just never know how much seed in any one fruit is crossed because there are alot of factors involved with how quickly a bee can get to the flower and how the bee acts when it gets to the flower. Poor weather can keep the bees away, and flower shape can make it more or less easy for a bee to rub up against the stigma (much of the time a bee doesn't touch the stigma when collecting pollen from a tomato blossom).

Distance has little to do with it, a bee will fly up and down my yard (150 feet between end tomato plots) hitting dozens of plants before flying back to its nest to clean off the pollen it has collected. Wind pollination from one flower to the next, one plant to the next is very rare because the flowers hang face down and don't have much ripe pollen at any one time.

Cherry tomatoes tend to be popular daddies because they usually have many more flowers open than other plants so bees have more of that pollen on their bodies. Modern breeding lines (round red shipping types) tend to have short stigmas that don't stick out far from the anther cone so tend to avoid cross pollination.


It is nice when seed savers take the effort to bag blossoms, but most do not and never have so its not a big deal. You just take what you get, plant more than you need, avoid seedlings that look different and hope for the best.



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