Gathering tomato seeds

[templebell]

I bought some young tomato plants at my allotment. Loved them, but to make sure I can get the same variety next year I need to gather seeds and grow plants myself. Advice and tips for growing or a web link would be very much appreciated

[Gardener-Mike]

Seed saving from tomatoes isnt difficult:

Scoop out the seeds you want to keep from the tomato and place them in a jar with water
Place said jar on your window sill for 2-3 days til there is "mould" growth in there, this eats the jelly substance.
Empty half the water with any floating seeds and the gunk, fill back up with water, empty more and repeat til it is clear water with no floaters, sieve out the seeds and pat them dry, store in an envelope or such in a dark cool place until required for planting.

They should be totally dry before storage.

[templebell]

Originally Posted by Gardener-Mike

Seed saving from tomatoes isnt difficult:

Scoop out the seeds you want to keep from the tomato and place them in a jar with water
Place said jar on your window sill for 2-3 days til there is "mould" growth in there, this eats the jelly substance.
Empty half the water with any floating seeds and the gunk, fill back up with water, empty more and repeat til it is clear water with no floaters, sieve out the seeds and pat them dry, store in an envelope or such in a dark cool place until required for planting.

They should be totally dry before storage.

thanks

[Gardener-Mike]

Just 1 extra thing, I may be wrong on this and please if I am someone correct me.

If the original tomato plant was from a "F1" seed it will not grow right.

F1 hybrids need to be recrossed with the originals each season, hence why F1 seeds should not be bought, they basically grow supermarket food and also why seed saving is massively important now while we have the chance.

Just don't rely on the seeds growing :/ get some seeds and plant them and not F1!!! many seed selling websites will not touch F1 seeds.

[Shetty]

Originally Posted by Gardener-Mike

Just 1 extra thing, I may be wrong on this and please if I am someone correct me.

If the original tomato plant was from a "F1" seed it will not grow right.

F1 hybrids need to be recrossed with the originals each season, hence why F1 seeds should not be bought, they basically grow supermarket food and also why seed saving is massively important now while we have the chance.

Just don't rely on the seeds growing :/ get some seeds and plant them and not F1!!! many seed selling websites will not touch F1 seeds.

You are right there.
Thanks to Mr Mendel from Austria (a bit before my time, but Marmite might remember him) who did some test with peas if I remember eigtly. (I think my biology teacher would be proud of me)
I remember my granny not believing me. F1 varieties were the latest fashion then, and she saved tomatoe seeds. I think out of the 10 plants or so one was similar to the original F1 the rest was inedible. But you only found out when the fruits was ready for picking

[bartolli]

Its the same with f1 flowers, saved seed won't give the same results. But why should that stop you buying f1 seeds or plants?

[Gardener-Mike]

For me personally bartolli I love as I am sure we all do seeing what I grow develop and finally end up on my plate, knowing that my labour of love has produced my food.

Saving seed is good because we all have slightly different soil, so we can save from the best plants we have had, knowing they will do well in our soil. Also the saving, I have just gathered my next seasons batch of runner bean seeds, this will be there 3rd generation of being grown by myself. I should in theory never have to buy runner bean seeds again!!

I also like the fact that my veg are not uniform grown, they are different sizes, they are not supermarket sellable.

Personally I will not buy any f1 seeds, ones I have that have been free do not get grown, it is just my personal preference, to me F1 means money to large seed corporations that want you buying year after year from them.

[marmite]

Originally Posted by Shetty

You are right there.
Thanks to Mr Mendel from Austria (a bit before my time, but Marmite might remember him) who did some test with peas if I remember eigtly. (I think my biology teacher would be proud of me)
I remember my granny not believing me. F1 varieties were the latest fashion then, and she saved tomatoe seeds. I think out of the 10 plants or so one was similar to the original F1 the rest was inedible. But you only found out when the fruits was ready for picking

Hello Shetty I am not as old as that. But Noah said to me "I hope this boat dont leak." then he ran it aground.

[airconednightmare]

I’m pretty sure F1 just means the result of crossing two different genetic types. Like a mule is a F1 cross of a donkey and a horse. Some crosses end with a stabilised F1 cross which can be inbred to produce similar plants, however some don’t. F1 seeds produce something a stabilised breed can’t...the end product could be good or bad.

[Gardener-Mike]

So seed saving from F1 seeds, you don't know what will happen, where with "real" seeds you do

[bartolli]

For me personally bartolli I love as I am sure we all do seeing what I grow develop and finally end up on my plate, knowing that my labour of love has produced my food.

Saving seed is good because we all have slightly different soil, so we can save from the best plants we have had, knowing they will do well in our soil. Also the saving, I have just gathered my next seasons batch of runner bean seeds, this will be there 3rd generation of being grown by myself. I should in theory never have to buy runner bean seeds again!!

I also like the fact that my veg are not uniform grown, they are different sizes, they are not supermarket sellable.

Personally I will not buy any f1 seeds, ones I have that have been free do not get grown, it is just my personal preference, to me F1 means money to large seed corporations that want you buying year after year from them.

Thx for the explanation Mike, that is an understandable viewpoint!

[Lesley Jay]

Hi,

F1 stands for Filial 1 the first generation. An F1 hybrid is the result of many years selected pure line breeding. Breeders want features like identical, perfectly shaped vegetables which is why if you buy tomatoes in the supermarket they are all the same size and shape. They breed disease resistance and heavy yields into the plants. The only way you could reproduce an F1 variety is to know what pure line varieties the breeder used for the cross. This is why F1 seeds are more expensive.

However, you can save the seeds from an F1 variety but as you have said only a percentage will grow plants that are true to type, in other words they will not all be identical to the parent plant and some will produce vegetables that are weird shapes and sizes.

By sowing the seeds saved from an F1 variety the next generation becomes an F2. If you save the seeds from the F2 the next generation will become F3. Each year there will be a percentage that are not true to type but by only saving the seeds from the plants and vegetables that show the characteristics that you want to keep in the variety eventually over the generations you should breed out the bad characteristics.

Most tomato varieties are self pollinating, but to avoid cross pollination from the plants displaying characteristics that you don't want I would pull up any plants that just don't look right - poor growth, wrong leaf shape etc.