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GARDENING TIPS HOME
MIILLINGTON SEED COMPANY
HIGH QUALITY GARDEN SEED |
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Seed Collecting Tips |
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Collecting seeds
from your flowers and vegetables can be fun
and rewarding. It can also be disappointing
if you don't know a few things.
First of all it is best to collect seeds
from "stabilized" or heirloom vegetable
varieties. Seeds collected from heirloom
vegetables may produce offspring almost
identical to the parental plants if they
haven't been cross pollinated. Cross
pollination occurs when more than one
variety is grown together or near by,
usually within 100 feet or less. When cross
pollination occurs between two stabilized
varieties you get what is called a hybrid.
The very first generation of offspring from
are called F1 hybrids. If you interbreed
this generation the offspring or seeds are
called F2. |
If you repeat
the interbreeding process seeds
collected from the consecutive
generations are labeled, F3,F4,F5 and so
on.
The "F" stands for the Latin word filial
which basically means family offspring. To a
plant breeder it basically means inbred
generation. The number behind the F refers
to the actual consecutive generation
indicating it's place in the breeding
sequence.
It is commonly
thought that cross pollinating two different
varieties of the same species results in a
hybrid. This is not totally true. What
happens when you cross pollinate an F1
hybrid to
another F1 hybrid results in a poly-hybrid.
The offspring will likely be highly
unstable. Maybe not so much in the first
generation but the resulting generations
after the original poly-hybrid cross will be
extremely unstable. This means if you are
trying to pin down certain traits it will be
very difficult.
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Lets go back to
the beginning. When 2 stabile varieties are
crossed we get an F1 hybrid. F1 hybrids
often appear stable because the plants often
look similar. The genes kind of "lock up"
the same way in most plants resulting in
very similar looking offspring. When we make
and grow out the F2 generation we notice the
offspring are not stable. Some look like one
of the original parents, some look like the
other parent and some look like various
"mixes" of the original parents. This
phenomenon is what we refer to as unstable.
The F2 generation generally expresses the
most variation and this is why. |
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Breeders usually look for plants expressing
the most desirable traits from the F2
generation. Because this generation is so
diverse breeders get the best chance to find
offspring expressing these "desirable"
traits. When you inbreed two plants
expressing the same traits a high percentage
of offspring will likely express those
traits in the next generation. Interbreeding
two F3 plants expressing the same traits
will create an even higher percentage of of
similar F4 plants. If done properly
eventually all the offspring from
consecutive generations will breed true.
Breeding true means the offspring are almost
identical. There is an art to doing this and
it can take many generations to produce a
true breeding line.
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Note that it is important when inbreeding to
use more than two plants per generation.
Select many plants with the same desirable
traits to help ensure you don't breed some
kind of weakness into the line. I used the
two parental plant explanation to make this
a little easier to understand.
Why do breeders
create hybrid plants? For many reasons
actually. Vegetable breeders are constantly
trying to produce strains that are resistant
to disease or a harsh climate etc. Flower
breeders are always trying to be the first
to produce a flower in a species with a
certain color nobody has yet been able to
produce etc. It's human nature, our
curiosity and drive to manipulate nature
creates challenges. Humans love to take on
challenges.
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So when it comes to collecting seeds it
really depends on your goals or interests.
This will determine which plants to collect
seeds from. Collecting seeds from hybrids
can be fun if you want to try and stabilize
your very own line. Collecting seeds from
stabilized or heirloom varieties works out
great because somebody already did the hard
work for you. Stabilized strains also are
great for creating your own F1 hybrid
experiments. F1 hybrids are quite available
and give the opportunity for breeders and
hobbyists to create their own stable lines.
You could also start with two stable lines,
make an F1 hybrid and stabilize it by
inbreeding consecutive generations.
The sky's the limit and you can see there
are many reasons to collect seeds. You can
simply inbreed stable lines to create a huge
surplus of a certain flower variety. You may
want to create your own unique squash,
tomato, watermelon or who knows what. It all
starts with a game plan and some seeds. I
hope this page helped with any questions you
may have had about collecting seeds and why
to collect them.
Remember when
collecting seeds from vegetables to let the
seeds dry on a sheet of wax paper. Flip the
seeds daily until they appear dry. Then
continue to air dry for another 3-4 weeks.
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About The Author:
Written By Steve Snyder
Visit my garden seed website. We offer high
quality fresh flower, vegetable and herb seed
for the home gardener.
Millington Seed Co
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