Heirloom seeds

[S&W Fan]

I can’t recall seeing a thread in here on saving seeds. Was just curious if any of you home gardeners stored any heirloom seeds for long term future use. We save some almost every year for storage in small ziploc bags and then place them in small mason jelly jars.
The seeds that we plan on using for the following year get stored in the back of the refrigerator and the ones for longer term storage get stored in the back of the pantry where it’s somewhat cool and dark. A cellar would be much more ideal but unfortunately we don’t have one.

 

[TEOTWAWKI inc.]

I let heirloom lettuce, among a few other things, go to seed, and the bed is full of lettuce plants now. Saving seeds, although not difficult, could be an invaluable skill/prep one day.

 

[fnfalguy]

I don’t save the seeds regularly. I will every once in a while to to remember I can. We like to change up what we plant on a regular basis due to limited attention span I guess.

 

[Doc8404]

I have a hybrid cherry tomato plant from lowes. Should save the seeds.
It was that HUGE plant from last year that I couldn’t keep up with.

it sprouted again on its own a few months ago and we have ripe tomatoes now.

 

[Acer-m14]

just keep i think Montesano away ,, if they infect your crop . its now belongs to them ..

 

[spat]

I have a hybrid cherry tomato plant from lowes. Should save the seeds.
It was that HUGE plant from last year that I couldn’t keep up with.

it sprouted again on its own a few months ago and we have ripe tomatoes now.

If it's hybrid then the seeds are probably not worth saving. They may not even be viable.

The way hybridization works you take 2 mediocre plants that have been bred specifically to produce spectacular offspring when they are mated with each other. But that offspring is often sterile, and even when they're not typically the spectacular results only happens in the first generation.

If you could get your hands on seeds for the parents of your hybrid, you would be in business. They will copyright those seeds (seriously, they have sued people who managed to get a hold of them).


Some familiar hybrids exhibiting these traits in the animal world would be mules, or ligers.

 

[TEOTWAWKI inc.]

I didn't get around to it this year, but I wanted to cross Krim and Tomesol tomatoes.

I figured it would be a fast growing, heavy feeder, needing lots of support, and still turning out unproductive.

 

[Doc8404]

If it's hybrid then the seeds are probably not worth saving. They may not even be viable.

The way hybridization works you take 2 mediocre plants that have been bred specifically to produce spectacular offspring when they are mated with each other. But that offspring is often sterile, and even when they're not typically the spectacular results only happens in the first generation.

If you could get your hands on seeds for the parents of your hybrid, you would be in business. They will copyright those seeds (seriously, they have sued people who managed to get a hold of them).


Some familiar hybrids exhibiting these traits in the animal world would be mules, or ligers.

i am surprised they sprouted from seed this year then.

 

[spat]

i am surprised they sprouted from seed this year then.

Not all hybrids are sterile.

Buy many are designed so that only the first generation has significant performance.

The next round is likely to be mediocre at best.

This is specifically engineered into them by the seed companies, for the same reason that John Deere makes it hard to repair your own tractor.

 

[livingston]

Basic Seed Saving: Easy step by step instructions for 18 popular vegetables and 29 wildflowers!: Bill McDorman: 9780615332314: Amazon.com: Books

Basic Seed Saving: Easy step by step instructions for 18 popular vegetables and 29 wildflowers! [Bill McDorman] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Basic Seed Saving: Easy step by step instructions for 18 popular vegetables and 29 wildflowers!

www.amazon.com

Basic Seed Saving: Easy step by step instructions for 18 popular vegetables and 29 wildflowers!: Bill McDorman: 9780615332314: Amazon.com: Books

Basic Seed Saving: Easy step by step instructions for 18 popular vegetables and 29 wildflowers! [Bill McDorman] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Basic Seed Saving: Easy step by step instructions for 18 popular vegetables and 29 wildflowers!

www.amazon.com

Looks like there are a number of books out there

 

[Doc8404]

Gardening & Seed Saving Terms - SeedSavers

Use this list of terms to expand your understanding of seed saving and gardening. The definitions are drawn from The Seed Garden.

www.seedsavers.org

 

[livingston]

Hybrids are not an evil thing. One can have say a fungus that affects the crop and certain plants show a resistance to that fungus and so that genetics are propagated so that future offspring show some resistance to said fungus. Commercial corn for feed is one prime example. ...
Going back to the tomato . Machines were developed to pick them and then they needed to have a tomato that would stand up to being picked without damage. One crosses this variety with that variety trying to create something that could be picked,packed and shipped around the country without damage.

 

[livingston]

I have a book on heirloom apples .. There are a number of people that comb the countryside looking at abandoned farmsteads looking for apples that they grew 150 years ago but have been lost to history. .. Sometimes they find real gems..
I find this a fascinating article about the Geneva experiment station .. I understand they have over 2500 varieties

Breaking Ground: The Call of the Wild Apple

ALL the way in the back of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station’s orchard here stand several jumbled rows of the oddest apple trees you’ve ever seen. No two are alike, not in form or leaf or fruit: this one could pass for a linden tree, that one for a demented forsythia. Maybe a<p...

michaelpollan.com

Wild apples, indeed: all of these trees were grown from seeds gathered in Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, the wild apple’s Eden, where botanists now believe the domestic apple has its ancient roots in a species called Malus sieversii. The orchard where I made the acquaintance of M. sieversii is the United States Agriculture Department’s apple collection in Geneva, probably the world’s most comprehensive collection of apple trees.

Here, some 2,500 different varieties have been gathered from all over the world and set out in pairs, as if on a beached botanical ark.

 

[livingston]

Kazakhstan’s treasure trove of wildly-flavoured apples

The apples in our supermarkets are very likely descended from Central Asian ancestors still growing in wild Kazakhstan. The search is on to bring more of them to the world’s attention.

www.bbc.com

Over three trips and with seeds from an earlier expedition by his colleague Herb Aldwinckle in 1991, Forsline and the USDA gathered more than 130,000 individual seeds from about 1,000 trees. They are now part of a gene bank in Geneva, New York, available to researchers around the world who have, ever since, been trying to crack the secrets of Kazakhstan’s treasure trove of apples.

The USDA team wasn’t the only group that travelled to the forests. John Selborne, Earl of Selborne, is a British apple farmer who has managed an orchard in Hampshire, England for 40 years. In 2010, he visited the forests in the Tian Shan mountains near Almaty.

“It is a remarkable sight,” he says. “You go into these forests and you find that the apple is the predominant species. It’s totally chaotic because everything is intertwined, they’re difficult to walk through.” Some of the fruit tasted by Selborne were “disgusting” while others, he remembers fondly, were “delicious”.

 

[Phauxtoe]

In my family, our favorite Heirloom seed is the Speer 148g hbwc!

 

[spat]

Hybrids are not an evil thing. One can have say a fungus that affects the crop and certain plants show a resistance to that fungus and so that genetics are propagated so that future offspring show some resistance to said fungus. Commercial corn for feed is one prime example. ...
Going back to the tomato . Machines were developed to pick them and then they needed to have a tomato that would stand up to being picked without damage. One crosses this variety with that variety trying to create something that could be picked,packed and shipped around the country without damage.

Hybridization is a very valuable technique.

But like so many things, the seed companies have used it to breed in the biological equivalent of the digital rights management that makes it so you can't copy DVDs.

It's not the fact that they're hybrid that's the problem, it's what the manufacturers have done with it.

If you don't plan on growing another generation, then it's not a big deal at all. As long as you're good with having to buy fresh seed every year, they're good.

 

[TEOTWAWKI inc.]

My fruit trees came with a disclaimer(legal notice/warning) about unauthorized propagation.

 

[livingston]

Remarkable Kazak Apples
Their resistance to disease may boost an entire industry​

Fruit representing 21 of 1,600 Malus sieversii trees growing in Geneva, New York. The trees, grown from germplasm collected in central Asia, contain a treasure trove of genes for improving disease resistance of American domestic apples.
Forsline is curator of ARS’s Plant Genetic Resources Unit (PGRU), located on Cornell University’s Geneva campus. And the genetic makeup of the trees he attends to may revolutionize the nation’s—and perhaps the world’s—apple industry.
These trees come from seeds and grafts Forsline and other researchers collected mostly during the 1990s in central Asia and Europe. Their material was gathered during seven expeditions sponsored by USDA and the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System aimed at expanding the known genetic diversity of apples.

Forsline went on seven of the trips, including four to central Asia, to collect apple material, conserve it, and, after evaluation, distribute it to breeders and geneticists worldwide. Other trips were to Sichuan, Russian, and Turkish sectors of the Caucasus region, and Germany.

“What we collected made possible our re-creation of Kazakhstan and China here in Geneva,” he says. “All that effort is now bearing fruit, literally and scientifically.”

He says the trips resulted in “at least a doubling of the known genetic diversity of apples. It turns out that this gene pool is much more diverse than we had originally thought. And what we’ve found may help make the trees stand up better to diseases.”

Forsline says that many of the Kazak apples lack the size and flavor needed for commercial success. “But it’s the trees’ ability to resist diseases that sets them apart. Breeders will be able to cross them with palatable varieties.”

USDA ARS Online Magazine Vol. 54, No. 1

agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov

 

[livingston]

Best Tomatoes for Slicing, Sauces or Salads- Farm to Jar

A roundup of the best heirloom tomato varieties matched to their intended uses: slicing for BLTs, sauces or salads.

farmtojar.com

Best Heirloom Tomato Varieties in 2020 (with some hybrids)​

• https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sha...s - Matching Variety to Use- Farm to Jar food
• Whether you want to use heirloom tomatoes for making a spaghetti sauce, a caprese salad, a tomato tartine or a simple BLT, it is important to choose the right tomato for your intended use.
  
  There are hundreds of heirloom tomato varieties and they each serve a particular purpose or highlight a particular flavor. The following list groups the tomatoes by color or use, with a brief summary highlighting the unique characteristic of the individual tomato:
  
  

 

[Vapor]

One of my favorite heirloom tomatoes in green zebra. Low acid, and very disease resistant.


The ones that are the biggest bitch are biannuals like Swiss chard and beats.