Topic: Heirloom or F1?

[Suzanne]

Reading the HSL thread postings there are various views about whether membership of HSL is value for money or not.

I use both commercially available seeds - many of which are F1's as well as growing open-pollinated heirloom varieties. I would hate to think we are losing old varieties which are no longer "commercially viable" which is one of the reasons why I subscribe to HSL and Garden Organic. Having said that i read an article recently which said some of the modern and very popular F1's, like Peer Gynt brussel sprouts, are even more difficult to save than the heirloom open pollinated varieties.

Any thoughts on this?  :-\

[Rob08]

Anything marked F1 is a hybrid so the seed most likely will not come true to type.  That said people do sometimes get lucky.

Overall I choose to use heirloom, open pollinated types instead of the F1's.  The reason that I can do that is that as a home gardener I am not as dependent on consistency of yield as a commercial farmer would be. 

I doubt very much that I will actually get into seed saving in any big way, but there will be some veggies that I will try and save seed from.  For the rest I will consider the financial support that I give to the companies that make the effort to save heirloom crops as me doing my part to maintain our food security.

[Robert_Brenchley]

It would be really hard to save an F1 as you'd need to get seed of the two parent varieties, and hand pollinate to get the F1. Who cares, good riddance.