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When saving tomato seeds, I know you want to save from a healthy plant. But what about the fruit on that plant. What if you have a thriving plant but save seed from a smaller fruit on it. Does that matter or should you pick from the biggest fruit?

Thanks Dono

No expert here but . . .

fruits are just plant parts,

seeds are offspring.

Steve

Who am I to talk? My tomatoes are still green--those plants that have survived our freezing cold "summer." Not as cold as last year, but we're on the other end of the atmospheric axis which has the middle and east continent stuck on HOT. We're stuck on COLD, and my tomatoes et al. are suffering for it.

Re. saving seeds--I'm real good at saving from cool-season plants!--I save from the plant that seems to want to bolt soonest. And the one that bolts last. I planted two varieties of kale and saved from both. Two varieties of chard; likewise.

Broccoli, planted one and saved it. Rapini likewise. Bok choy/pak choi likewise. Green peas and fava beans likewise.

No tomato seeds successfully saved yet; DH picks all the late-season tomatoes, despite my clear statements that I want to save the seeds.... *sigh*

My hope, in saving from the earliest- and last-to bolt, is that I'll be covered for weather variation.

Personally, *if* I had a good number of tomato varieties as well as several plants of each variety to choose from, I'd save from the *best-tasting* plant.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

Generally, people try to chose a fruit that is uniform in size to that variety of tomato, rather than a bigger, but badly misshapen one. It is most important that it be really ripe and then generally most people use the fermantation method with tomatoes. That "slime" around the seeds tends to inhibit their growth. So most people put the seeds in water and wait until there is some mold on the top of the cup or glass then dry the seeds well and store in a paper envelop.

I save from the best tasting/looking tomato from the best performing plants. and yes I taste each one before saving the seed.

I used to grow cherry tomatoes - no seed saving required, they just came back every year when I have a garden again, I'll plan for a more permanent spot...

cynthia_h wrote:Who am I to talk? My tomatoes are still green--those plants that have survived our freezing cold "summer." Not as cold as last year, but we're on the other end of the atmospheric axis which has the middle and east continent stuck on HOT. We're stuck on COLD, and my tomatoes et al. are suffering for it.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

I'm having the same issue. I've only harvested about half a pound of cherry toms and maybe 3 golf ball sized other tomatoes. So very sad in the East Bay these days

soil wrote:I save from the best tasting/looking tomato from the best performing plants. and yes I taste each one before saving the seed.

I am trying it this year for the first time. I have some great Brandywine tomatoes and have four sets: two are on paper plates drying and two are still in the jars fermenting. Those little seed are tiny for my big fingers to work with. I find that a knife is needed for me to scoop them off the plate, paper towel, counter or the side of the jar. They wind up everywhere.

So far the process has gone as forum posters have described. I will plant four or five seed in the next few days to see if they grow, and then use them in my green house this fall / winter.

My selection in NH-USA went like this for tomato.

Plant out the biggest 25% of seedlings I started

Note with a stake which ones set fruit earliest. (25%)

Select the yummiest fruit (by taking out, or moving) stakes.

Save seed from only fruit with small blossom end scars--as these were least likely to be cross pollinated.

No I did not bag blossoms.

It might be low-tech, but it was what I could do.

Stakes as in tent stakes, not trellis'.

why are tomatos with blossom end scars more likely to have been cross pollinated?

soil wrote:why are tomatos with blossom end scars more likely to have been cross pollinated?

Tomato is a perfect bloom. it doesn't need any direct insect help. Compound (the long scar) bloom can admit insect pollinators.

No buggy help = true to type. Or at least generally, more likely to be true to type.

Bagging tomato blossoms is a good thing in tomato breeding. IMO overkill for the home gardener.

Bagging also confuses and discourages new seed savers.

Interesting!

Seed from a tomato that my grandmother grew during the Depression was saved for about 10 years before I even thought about cross-pollination. It is probably Porter separated by 70+ years and I have grown that variety for comparison and only saw a difference in plant size & color, not fruit.

Those plants have now been in my garden for over 20 years - mixed in with over 25 other varieties at times. I always have some seed from earlier years as insurance but still have not seen any change in the plants or fruit. It has, essentially, no blossom scar.

. . . dumb luck.

Since tomatoes are usually self-pollinated, I am curious how each generation is not just a clone of the previous year. There must be some mixing of genes within that blossom, right?

Steve

digitS' wrote:Interesting!

Since tomatoes are usually self-pollinated, I am curious how each generation is not just a clone of the previous year. There must be some mixing of genes within that blossom, right?

Steve

Tomato is perfect blooming (self pollinating, if you prefer). So yes it aint rocket science to keep tomato-true-to type.

Does a tomato change subtly over many generations ? Abraham Lincoln tomato no longer has copper colored foliage. As 19th century catalogs noted. So yes I guess it does. I will also aver that grower selection has a hand in this change.

if I have any axe to grind with seed saving it is to encourage (and maybe enable) new growers.

Did for example; in my lifetime and in my family, (did we) change our seed saving habits? Yes, with a very long hiatus at the seed rack.