Seed Saver Question...

[journey11]

Hey, I was wondering if any of you guys could recommend to me a good, comprehensive book on saving seed/preserving heirloom varieties.

I am wanting to know more about cross-pollination and steps to prevent varieties from crossing and what will attempt to cross with what.

For example, I grow several varieties of tomatoes and squash each year and since they reproduce easily from seed, I often have many eager "volunteers", but most are "mutts". If I wanted to save seed from a particular variety that I was quite pleased with, what steps would I have to take to get them to breed true?

If you know of a book on the subject, please let me know. And I would also like to hear any suggestions/success stories from your own attempts to save seed.

 

[injunjoe]

I don't know any books but if you like I can share a seed collecting/trading program with you.

It is a database program that you can add a picture too and all the info and save.
It helps you trade over many forums and keeps all of your info for you!
Like dates, amount of seed you have, were it came from, notes about it, names and nicknames, addresses, just a bunch of useful info.

I am in the process of getting all these envelopes off my desk and into my new database! I think it will even print shipping labels for you!


I don't want to post the forum were I found it at. I don't think that is right. But I am willing to share it with others.

It is a zip. file and is spy-free!

Joe

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

Next year will be my first year to really pay attention to seed-saving and keeping a variety true. All of my seeds for next year are from outside sources but from there on out will be from my own saving. Tomatoes WILL cross but they are not as easily crossed as, say, squash or peppers. The reason being is a tomato blossom is a "perfect" flower in that the male and female parts are all within the same flower. This is NOT to be confused with a plant that is self-pollinating. A self-pollinator usually means a plant (such as squash, peppers, cucumber, etc) will have both male and female flowers.

Anyway, bees do not love tomatoes as much as other, more widely open flowers. So I think I have read somewhere that tomatoes will corss 20% of the time or less. What I plan on doing is bagging certain clusters of flowers (with organza) from the plants I wish to regrow. I have heard to preserve pepper strains it is easiest to bag the entire plant. Now, when you bag blooms or plants you need to pollinate each by hand with a little paintbrush since most veggie plants I know of do not have both male and female parts. And even with the tomato they will need some stimulation to similate the wind blowing the blooms around (thus dislodging the pollen). It sounds like a LOT of work but when you consider the amount of seeds you will get from one tomato or from a single pepper then really it is not time-consuming at all....


BTW, Joe, I would like to try your program. I have one like that but it was set-up for only tomatoes.....

 

[digitS']

I read Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth quite a few years ago.

I'm not sure whether I can recommend it or not. It's been too long ago that I read it.

Concern about Cucurbits cross-pollinating is good. They seem to do so, readily. Lots of people have zucchini in their gardens. Lots of people have pumpkins in their gardens. Most pumpkins, those of the Jack o'Lantern persuasion, are Cucurbita pepo. Zucchini is also a Cucurbita pepo. The offspring is neither a pumpkin nor a summer squash and looks to me to be darn near useless .

Certified fields used for seed production have to separated by MILES from other cucurbits. I am completely unwilling to save seed from these plants but that's because I don't remember anything from Suzanne Ashworth's book, I suspect .
Now with tomatoes , I don't much worry about crossing but potato-leafed varieties are supposed to do that more often than others.

Steve

 

[digitS']

Success stories?

I've saved the seed from my grandmother's tomato for about 20 years. My uncle, now over 80, saved seed from those plants before that. And, my grandmother saved the seed since the Great Depression.

I never see any change in the plants or the fruits from one year to the next. It didn't even occur to me to isolate them from other tomato plants until the last few years and I still haven't done it.

digitS'

 

[journey11]

Success stories?

I've saved the seed from my grandmother's tomato for about 20 years. My uncle, now over 80, saved seed from those plants before that. And, my grandmother saved the seed since the Great Depression.

I never see any change in the plants or the fruits from one year to the next. It didn't even occur to me to isolate them from other tomato plants until the last few years and I still haven't done it.

digitS'

I think that's the coolest thing ever, to have family heirloom seeds. I have a couple things passed down from as far back as my great-great-grandmother.

I am on the hunt now for the perfect bean...a real bean, with real taste and natural tenderness even when developed. My step-grandpa is helping me with that. And when I find it....I want to be able to save it for posterity!

Thanks for the book title, Steve. I'll see if I can check it out on Amazon...

 

[digitS']

Journey, it sounds like you are on the trail of a family/local pole bean heirloom.

I have a pole bean in my garden - the seed is from a Colorado gardener. I like Kentucky Wonder as do many others but my DW isn't really fond of it. This one makes huge pods but the pods are tender even when quite large and they are pretty much stringless. It has good flavor, too.

It doesn't take much to have more flavor than most modern bush beans altho' the purple-pods and Green Crop are flavorful. They are probably not what one might call "modern," however.

Honestly, I think there's a good chance that what I have are Cascade Giant pole beans. Maybe this year I will order some of that seed and compare them.

Steve

 

[patandchickens]

Tomatoes don't cross much, so if you take no precautions you will end up with "reasonably" pure lines; but if you really care about keeping a strain itself, with no outside blood, it is worth bagging flowers. You only need a few (mark them with a twist-tie so you know which fruits to save for seeds!) so it is not like it's so much work. Peppers outcross more and should be bagged.

Beans outcross practically not at all AFAIK; I don't think any normal person bags or isolates beans

The squashes/melons are the poster children for Things You Really Need To Bag The Flowers Of, Or Seriously Isolate. Othewise you get 'squumpkins' and so forth, the taste of which is entirely not predictable from the appearance, and often kind of ucky

Lettuces and umbelliferae (carrots, parsnips, etc) crosspollinate some reasonable amount and should be bagged or isolated if you are interested in preserving a particular variety.

Brassicas I have no idea about.

There are a LOT of books on seed-saving out there these days, and from the few I've had from the library and skimmed at bookstores there does not seem to be a major difference among them, probably whatever you can get thru your local library will be entirely fine

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[journey11]

I don't know any books but if you like I can share a seed collecting/trading program with you.

It is a database program that you can add a picture too and all the info and save.
It helps you trade over many forums and keeps all of your info for you!
Like dates, amount of seed you have, were it came from, notes about it, names and nicknames, addresses, just a bunch of useful info.

I am in the process of getting all these envelopes off my desk and into my new database! I think it will even print shipping labels for you!


I don't want to post the forum were I found it at. I don't think that is right. But I am willing to share it with others.

It is a zip. file and is spy-free!

Joe

That sounds interesting... I would like to check it out!

 

[journey11]

Thanks Pat, that would probably explain why beans and tomatoes seem to be most commonly saved... I found an interesting site, www.heirlooms.org, that specializes in beans and tomatoes of my region, and I hope to get some beans from them.

I allowed a squash/zucchini volunteer to develop one year, just for curiosities sake, and ended up with a giant, orange club!! Perhaps it would have been good for whack-a-bunny, but not much else!