Hi all. I am new to the gardening world, although I have to say it is fast becoming an obsession. I’ve recently moved to NE Tennessee, where the rain and fertile soil actually helps to grow things! (I’m formerly from the S. CA desert).
I have 4 small garden areas that I’ve managed to over-pack with seedlings from a can of nonhybrid seeds (the can is 7 years old, so I wanted to see if the seeds would sprout. Which they did marvelously!).
My question is - my neighbors, who all are avid gardeners, don’t appear to have heard of nonhybrid seeds. What is the advantage of them, vs. buying plants at Walmart, a garden center, etc.? Is it that the mass-produced plants will not create seeds that will grow?
Non hybrid seeds used to just be called seeds. And yes you can save the seeds from the plants you are growing now and use them for next year. Buying plants may be easier but if they are hybrids the seeds they produce will not get the same results. I stay away from hybrids. Welcome to the best thread on FR. Lots of very knowledgeable gardeners here who know a lot more than I do.
Say that it is a cross between two types of tomatoes. Then you might get some of one parent, some of the other parent, and some would be a cross. Something like that. I am not all that well versed on the process, and it's been almost 48 years since college science classes.
Heirloom open pollinated (non-hybrid) is the term that is typically used, for nonhybrid seeds, and they give “true” results. You plant an heirloom seed, and save the seeds from several of your best fruits and veggies, and plant them again the next year. You'll get the same type of produce you got the year before.
If you are planting hybrids, then you have to buy them again to get the same sort of produce.
While I do plant some hybrids now and then, I plant mostly heirlooms, and save my seeds. It's cheaper, and allows more diversity of flavors etc.
In addition I have been reading about the danger to the food supply from the lack of diversity. For example with corn, the basic foundation of all the types of hybrids, is so much the same, and so much of the corn is hybrid, that a disease that wipes out one field, could spread to many of the other hybrids too.
That's what I have read and I can't really talk about it in depth, because I haven't studied it in depth.
Then there's the whole GMO thing, which I don't want to get into, except to say that I object to a company controlling our food supply. When you buy GMO seeds, they are not really yours. You are not supposed to do anything other than plant them and harvest them.
Commercial growers use roundup on the GMO plants, and other produce, and I am trying to get away from such chemicals, so I'd also like to know if my food is GMO or not, but the commercial companies are fighting such labeling.
Now, the GMO’s have gotten to the point that it is very hard to find heirloom corn that has not been contaminated by GMO.
There are people who are working very hard to try to preserve the old varieties so that we maintain the diversity. Well that's more than I intended to say. So I'll just shut up now. LOL
Some will say that hybrid seeds are more productive and less prone to diseases. The truth is, that depends on the plant. Tomatoes show little or no difference between the higher-producing hierlooms and the hybrids, where corn often shows a drastic difference.
Generally speaking, if a particular species is prone to inbreeding depression, then the hybrids will be stronger and more productive. But, most people have never even heard of inbreeding depression.
Rule of thumb:
Grasses and brassicas: Save seed from as many different plants as possible, preferably 200 or more.
Nightshades, legumes, and curcurbits(squash, cucumbers, melons): It’s ok to save from just one.
Saving from a wider base helps slow down inbreeding depression in the plants that are vulnerable to it.
Which doesn’t quite answer your question. In species like nightshades, legumes, and curcurbits, hierlooms tend to be more tolerant of less-than-ideal growing conditions. They became hierlooms by being plants that people could depend on for survival. (This assumes you’ve chosen varieties that are at least reasonably disease-resistant.) Most modern varieties are grown in carefully irrigated fields and under relatively controlled conditions. Even the climate they were developed for might not match your own, and it won’t say that on the packet.
And, quite frankly, the same might be true for what was in your can of seeds. Go ahead and test them, then if you decide some don’t pass muster, we can help you get hold of better varieties for your growing conditions.
I’m in SW VA, near you,. My neighbors are very knowledgeable and I was surprised they didn’t care about heirloom seeds.
Since they used to depend on their gardens for food/money they tend to the hybrids because hybrids are more reliable and better producing. Seeds are cheap.
I’m a big heirloom fan, but if it was a matter of life or death if they produced well...