Topic: Fruit Bushes from seed

[Dirty Digger]

I've just gone and spent a tenner in Poundland on fruit bushes (new stock and I made sure I picked the ones that were definitely alive), however, I could quite easily dedicate a much larger area to soft fruit, so was wondering if anyone had any experience and tips they could give me on growing gooseberries/tayberries/rasberries etc from seed.

Anyone with any useful knowledge, feel free to post your info here.

[worldor]

Best to use cuttings. Each year when you prune stick the cuttings in the ground. They nearly all take.

[Dirty Digger]

Best to use cuttings. Each year when you prune stick the cuttings in the ground. They nearly all take.

Ok, that's a good idea but would still like to know about growing from seed.

All good educational answers most welcome.

[Tee Gee]

I agree with worldor go the cutting route!

As a matter of fact last year when I pruned my blackcurrants I stuck thirteen prunings in the ground along side my parent plants and on looking at them this morning all thirteen have taken and there were flowers/berries on all of them.

I will leave them in their present position until planting out time in the autumn and distribute them among other plot holders where I hope they will donate a few bob to the allotment funds.

I do the same with strawberry runners! I think there are very few people on our plots who do not have strawberries that have originated from my plot.

Who knows next back end I might increase my gooseberry stock in the same way!.

[realfood]

As far as I know, the only fruit that are readily available from seed are some strawberries and huckleberries and possibly Saskatoon's.
I have however, seen gooseberry and blackcurrant seedlings among my mature bushes, but have never grown them on as most of the seedlings are likely to be inferior to the mother plants. They will also take longer to start fruiting than rooted cuttings.

[Robert_Brenchley]

They don't come true from seed. You might strike lucky and get something good, or you might not. Cuttings come true, and are a lot faster.

[Dirty Digger]

They don't come true from seed. You might strike lucky and get something good, or you might not. Cuttings come true, and are a lot faster.

Ok, so are most fruit bushes F1's?

[amphibian]

They don't come true from seed. You might strike lucky and get something good, or you might not. Cuttings come true, and are a lot faster.

Ok, so are most fruit bushes F1's?

Mostly, yes.

It's like this with most vegatively propagated plants. Because each cutting/runner/tuber produces a clone of the source palnt breeders don't need to stabilise the cultivar. Basically you can save seed from any cloned plant then sow them, if any of the offspring produce something great then you clone this plant and you have just made a new variety. You can do this by saving seed from a potato fruit for example.

This is the reason you get such enormous variance in blackberries. The seed are rarely stable because most of the physical reproduction is not sexual, but when a bird eats a blackberry then excretes the seed the offspring will be very different to the parent.

[tugboat]

as a interesting sidepoint if you layer a cultivated blackberry[a method of vegetative reproduction] you can get the original wild blackberry as the offspring this is due to the outer
"skin" of the plant having different cells to the interior

[Robert_Brenchley]

It's not an F1 in the commercial sense. they don't mass produce the seed, they just do a cross, and if they think it's commercial they propagate it vegetatively and offer it for sale. But the rinciple's the same; it's the first filial generation (hence F1) from a cross.

[Unwashed]

They're not F1's as such, but the seedling will not come true.

I don't think any of the rose-family fruits are difficult to grow from seed so as a bit of fun you could grow a few on.  It's odds on they won't be very interesting, but you never know.

[Unwashed]

Actually, if the seed were self-polinated would they come true?  Sorry if that's a stupid thing to ask, but my plant-genetics is only what I remember from O-level biology.  Of course if they do come true then there's no advantage over cuttings which are way easier, but I'd like to understand how it works.

[amphibian]

Actually, if the seed were self-polinated would they come true?  Sorry if that's a stupid thing to ask, but my plant-genetics is only what I remember from O-level biology.  Of course if they do come true then there's no advantage over cuttings which are way easier, but I'd like to understand how it works.

No they wouldn't come true, there would be segragation.

On the topic of F1s, actually commercial crops are not like typical F1s. The breeder made a cross and obtained an F1, but the two cultivars used in the gross would not have been stable themselves, so this f1 will not behave like a typical F1, it will show segragation in the first generation. Often there isn't any need to make a cross because seed obtained from say a potato would all produce different results anyway, because of the heterozygousity of the parent, which teh original breeder had no need to stabalise.

[Dirty Digger]

The breeder made a cross and obtained an F1, but the two cultivars used in the gross would not have been stable themselves.

In my limited understanding of what an F1 is, this is not the way you get to it.

First of all, you need to breed out all the various crosses so that both parents are stable and true breeding. It takes up to 7 generations to get the correct parents, so F1's are the dogs doo dahs and well worth spending good money on.

You then pick the best parents with the characteristics you wish to bestow upon the F1 children. For example, large fruit, strong taste and vigorous growth. Both parents must have the same characteristics to get the full benefit. Then their children (the F1's) will have the full qualities of its parents added together.....much larger fruit than its parents, much stronger taste than its parents and grow much more vigorously than its parents.

Anyway, that's how I understand F1's.....all thanks to two pages of an Alan Titchmarsh book I read.

Just crossing any old plant with another is not an F1.

[PurpleHeather]

Just take care when you are weeding. I always find baby fruit trees and shrubs around and plant them up into little pots.

Learning to identify weeds and seedlings is all part of gardening to me, there are often gift plants out there, either self seeded or 'donated by the birds'. If a plant does not turn out to be what you hoped, you have not wasted anything by throwing it out later.

A lot of seeds grow better if they have first gone dry. I take them from peppers and tomatoes, anything and everything. Put the seeds and any slimy stuff on to a little kitchen paper, toilet paper or tissue and let them dry out then simply put several in a pot of wet compost (paper and all if they are stuck to it and cover with dry, then keep them moist. If nothing appears after a couple of months, re-use the compost and plant something else in it.

Don't be put off by negative responses about hybrid and f1 nor about the plant not being true or any of that stuff. I think it is put about by people who have never actually tried it them selves, just read something somewhere. You will get results and will love your little babies all the more for rearing them yourself.

If you can not afford pots, use old cartons with a hole in the bottom and if you have no compost, steal the soil from a mole hill. Collect rain water in a tub to water them for free too.

Don't be tempted to take self seeded plants indoors for too long either, it can get too hot for them but a window sill can help when and if it is frosty.

Peppers and chillis wont germinate in light, so always cover them with a decent layer of compost and be patient I was just about to dump a pot full yesterday I had planted on the 23rd March and as I tipped the pot the top layer fell off revealing little shoots which had not hit the surface yet.

[amphibian]

In my limited understanding of what an F1 is, this is not the way you get to it.

First of all, you need to breed out all the various crosses so that both parents are stable and true breeding. It takes up to 7 generations to get the correct parents, so F1's are the dogs doo dahs and well worth spending good money on.

An F1 in a non-cloning population is derived from stable parents, there is no stability required or present in cloning populations. An F1 in a stable population produces no segregation, in an unstable cloning population there is no stability in the F1, you simply sow all the seed, and if you like one of the segregants you clone it.

F1s are only the bees knees if your are dealing with an outbreeding plant that suffersd inbreeder depression, otherwise OP varieties will suit most needs far better.

You then pick the best parents with the characteristics you wish to bestow upon the F1 children. For example, large fruit, strong taste and vigorous growth. Both parents must have the same characteristics to get the full benefit. Then their children (the F1's) will have the full qualities of its parents added together.....much larger fruit than its parents, much stronger taste than its parents and grow much more vigorously than its parents.

It doesn't really work like that at all, the F1 will have the characteristics of the dominant alleles supplied by each parent only, every F1 is identical genetically. You will only see a combination of all the best characteristics of each parent among some of the F2 population.

Anyway, that's how I understand F1's.....all thanks to two pages of an Alan Titchmarsh book I read.

I think he should have explained it differently then.

Just crossing any old plant with another is not an F1.

Yes it is, it may not be a commercially viable F1, but it's an F1. An F1 is any hybrid resulting from two distinctly different parent types.

[Spudbash]

Fruit bushes and trees from seed will vary, not only in their flavour and season of cropping, but also in their size. You might plant what looks like a blackcurrant, only to find that it grows far larger than the parent bush and that it's a gooseberry cross! At least, that's how the seed that the birds left under my mother's apple tree turned out. It tasted foul and my brother weeded it out.  :P

If I had the space for more fruit trees and bushes, I would prefer to grow more apple cordons for a bigger range of varieties throughout autumn, and a few other choice fruits. However, I am growing on a couple of seedling gooseberries that have appeared in my garden. One of the joys of gardening is surely having the freedom to choose what you grow, in whatever way you want. Whatever else is going on your life, at least you can have the pleasure of choosing what you grow.  ;D

[Dirty Digger]

In my limited understanding of what an F1 is, this is not the way you get to it.

First of all, you need to breed out all the various crosses so that both parents are stable and true breeding. It takes up to 7 generations to get the correct parents, so F1's are the dogs doo dahs and well worth spending good money on.

An F1 in a non-cloning population is derived from stable parents, there is no stability required or present in cloning populations. An F1 in a stable population produces no segregation, in an unstable cloning population there is no stability in the F1, you simply sow all the seed, and if you like one of the segregants you clone it.

F1s are only the bees knees if your are dealing with an outbreeding plant that suffersd inbreeder depression, otherwise OP varieties will suit most needs far better.

You then pick the best parents with the characteristics you wish to bestow upon the F1 children. For example, large fruit, strong taste and vigorous growth. Both parents must have the same characteristics to get the full benefit. Then their children (the F1's) will have the full qualities of its parents added together.....much larger fruit than its parents, much stronger taste than its parents and grow much more vigorously than its parents.

It doesn't really work like that at all, the F1 will have the characteristics of the dominant alleles supplied by each parent only, every F1 is identical genetically. You will only see a combination of all the best characteristics of each parent among some of the F2 population.

Anyway, that's how I understand F1's.....all thanks to two pages of an Alan Titchmarsh book I read.

I think he should have explained it differently then.

Just crossing any old plant with another is not an F1.

Yes it is, it may not be a commercially viable F1, but it's an F1. An F1 is any hybrid resulting from two distinctly different parent types.

Amphibian, I bow to your superior knowledge re F1's, however, your answer is too "text book" like for me to comprehend, so is there any chance of explaining what you mean in easy english?

[Robert_Brenchley]

F1s are only the bees knees if your are dealing with an outbreeding plant that suffersd inbreeder depression, otherwise OP varieties will suit most needs far better.

Just to explain this bit, an outbreeding plant is one that habitually cross-pollinates, like squashes, brassicas or sweet corn. Inbreeding depression is where the plant needs to have genes from multiple parents. It inherits pairs of genes, one set from each parent. Some plants, peas for instance, are inbreeders, and don't care if they've got two identical sets. So they can self-pollinate quite happily. Others can't.

To use bees as an example, sex is determined by a single gene, with lots of different forms (known as alleles) If it has two different genes ( in technical terms, it's heterozygous), it's female. If it isn't, it's male. If it comes from an unfertilised egg, with only one set of genes, then it can't possibly be heterozygous, so it's a drone. If it has two sets of genes, and both sex genes are the same, it's not heterozygous either, it's homozygous. If this is allowed to grow up, it turns into a monstrous overgrown drone, but in practice such an egg is always eaten. If a queen is inbred, she produces a lot of these diploid drone eggs, and as a result, the hive will always have less worker eggs, and less workers, than it should have.

I don't know the details, but sweet corn is a plant which suffers badly from inbreeding depression. You need about 200 plants pollinating each other to maintain a variety successfully, which rules out most people. I'm not convinced that F1's are any better though. I see no reason why a stable supersweet couldn't be produced easily, except that farmers would then be able to save their own seed, and might not be back every year to buy more.

[antipodes]

even I with my hopeless ungreen fingers, now have 4 gooseberry bushes instead of 3, after cunningly trimming and pushing a broken off branch into the ground in the autumn. It is still quite small but it has grown vigourously with absolutely no help from me.