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Experiment with Hybrid seeds

By geekgardener, on October 31st, 2009%

In my recent articles about seed saving, I had mentioned the consequences of saving seeds from a plant grown from hybrid seed. There was also some explanation on why saving such a seed will not produce the same type of yield that you got to begin with. While it is good to understand the concept theoretically we always need some visual proof as to what happens if we really save the seed from a hybrid plant. In this post, we are going to see just that.

Last year, I had purchased White brinjal seeds.By white I mean milk white. The moment I saw that brinjal seed I was taken away. It had glowing white color and it was priced at 50/- per packet. I didn’t bother too much about the fact it is hybrid or not. What went in my mind was, the packet has many seeds!..why should I bother about saving the seeds. I don’t even know if i can use all the seeds. Anyway, I bought those seeds and sowed them without any delay. I got a bountiful harvest whose pictures I posted in this blog here. One of those plants, had a huge brinjal which I left for seed. The white brinjal when ripe becomes yellow in color.

MyGarden 714

After it reached the stage I can collect seeds, I did the obvious.I collected seeds and sowed most of them back. All of them germinated with in 3-4 days and I had lush green seedlings. I transplanted them into different pots. Things are fine so far. Due the difference in sizes of the pots, few started flowering early and few took their own time.

The first few flowers I saw were purple in color. The initial plant I grew from purchased seed was purple. You sow purple you get purple. Like the flower below, I was happy. I got the purple flower and the Brinjal was white as milk.

Purple flower and its fruit

MyGarden 758

MyGarden 757

 

Well,  After couple of weeks, I had few more plants starting to flower and guess what the color is White. Initially I thought, may be thats a ‘sport’. More and more plants with white colored flower.

White flower and its fruit:

MyGarden 751

 

MyGarden 752

It dawned on me then!.. I went back again to look at the seed packet and there you go! it has hybrid written on it in uppercase. Interestingly, the ones with the white flowers have fruits that are dull white more towards pale green and the ones with purple yield perfectly white brinjal. Also, the size of the fruit has come down drastically. These could be one of the parents that resulted in the Hybrid.

Now what If i wanted those original seeds  that gave me good yield and big veggies? I guess i will have go to the seed company to buy it again. May be not. If I carefully sow many seeds and select the plants based on their traits may be I can get the same variety again. But who can do that?. This is exactly why you don’t save seeds from a F1 hybrid plant.

6 comments   eggplant, gardening, seed saving, vegetables   , , ,  

Seed saving – Continued

By geekgardener, on October 6th, 2009%

In my last post, I wrote about Seed saving with the explanation of OP and Hybrids pending. Why should you know about OP and Hybrid ? The reason why you are saving seed is probably you like some trait of that plant like a) taste, b) color c) appearance. Or any other habit of that plant. Lets say you go to a friends house and see a sweet cherry tomato!. You bring some seed; sow and wait for sweet cherry ( ofcourse you would). Your expectation is it should yield sweet cherry. What it would yield? Here is where OP and Hybrid comes into picture.

OP – Open Pollinated:

In OP varieties, the pollination ( a.k.a Plant sex!) happens naturally by wind, insects, animals, birds, humans etc. The seeds formed as a result of such pollination, results in new generation of same plants. Usually OP varieties are grown in such a way that crop of two different varieties are not planted close to each other to avoid cross pollination. This is usually achieved via growing the crops at a distance from the other or covering them with net so that they pollinate with the same variety(self pollination). This way, varietal purity is achieved. So a sweet cherry seed will result in sweet cherry tomato. You can save the seeds of the plant and still get the same variety.

Hybrid:

A Hybrid vegetable seed results from the cross or mating between two different varieties or “parents” of the same plant species. Two varieties of the plants are chosen for their desirable traits and carefully cross pollinated manually to produce a variety that has desirable quality from both the parents. Saving the seed of a hybrid seed will not always guarantee the same qualities that you desire. A sweet cherry may not be sweet at all. This is just an example but you get the idea.

There are much details explanation of How a hybrid is formed and how breeders come up with a new variety. I will leave that up to you!.

So, if you want to save seeds, make sure the fruit is not from a hybrid ( plant grown from hybrid seed).

If you are planning to save Heirloom seeds, ensure the plants of a variety are not grown next to plants of another variety of the same species.

You can avoid cross pollination by

1. Covering the plants with mosquito net.

2. Keeping the plants far away from each other.

3. Timing the sowing such no two varieties flower at the same time.

Happy seed saving

gg

9 comments   gardening, seed saving   , , , , ,  
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