Topic: Second generation F1 seed - does it always/never go triffid?

[Vinlander]

Has anyone actually seen wild variation in the offspring produced in their own garden from 2nd or 3rd generation seeds of F1 varieties?

Over the years I have completely ignored the dire warnings issued by the seed merchants (they would say that wouldn't they?) - and I've never had anything that wasn't instantly recognisable as close to the parent (not counting the squash family where they hybridise so promiscuously that the next generation is nearly always unrecognisable - not as bad as a shoat but not far off).

I haven't done this consistently - just when replacement seeds were hard to source or were absurdly expensive.

Nevertheless I've had at least 10 positive results, no negative ones.

Obviously I've had mixed results within the row - but I've had mixed results in every row from every packet of seed I've ever bought!

And that includes packets of F1 seed.

Basically unless you have soil like a TV gardener (where you don't need a trowel you can just flatten your hand and push it in) you will always get some variation.

I can think of 4 explanations:

1) Some seed labelled (and priced) as F1 simply isn't - and we are unlikely to notice because we aren't on "TV soil" so we expect some variation.

2) It's true what they say about F1 in some cases but most of the time it ain't.

3) The kinds of F1 veg that "go triffid" simply aren't the ones that we'd be likely to bother saving anyway.

4) It really only applies to flowers because flowers are the most noticeable indicators of variation whereas size, flavour, yield etc. require careful study to distinguish.

What do you think??

Cheers.

[galina]

Go triffid is not really what happens.  And yes there are some F1 varieties where it is really doubtful whether they are a genuine hybrid.  Why is CrownPrince squash called a hybrid by some seed companies and not by other?  Ditto Cream of the crop squash and a few tomatoes too.

Quite often the hybrid is a normal variety that has had some resistance crossed into it by way of a resistant variety.  It would be difficult to know whether the resistance is still there when you take seeds from future generation.  The actual vegetable may look very similar.

A tomato from a hybrid plant will still produce a tomato, not a triffid.  I have tried to grow from a hybrid pepper and got no germination at all, apparently this too can happen.  Many people have bought a butternut squash in the shop and grown the seeds inside and got squashes that were recognisable as and very similar to butternut squashes.

On the other hand I am currently growing out and evaluating new varieties that have arisen from a cross between two different beans and what I am getting is very different.  Mainly because the parent beans were very different from each other.  Some types are much better than others.  There  a r e  real differences,  But all are beans with characteristics of the parent beans.

One last concept to mull over:  When plant breeder Glenn Drowns wanted a watermelon that would produce in his northern part of the USA, he started off with mass hybridation and selected for the earliest and tastiest.  He used the diversity found in F2 and further generations after a cross to create his own new variety, which was uniquely adapted to his area.

Rather than a triffid, growing further generations after a hybrid is an opportunity towards new and uniquely adapted varieties, but this requires a rigorous selection process over many years.

There wil be many duff new types and few superior ones.  The skill is to notice which is a good one and then make sure it does not get cross pollinated so it can be followed up as a new true-breeding variety.

PS:  have just read your last post about garlic, where you say what you mean by going triffid, ie growing huge and not in a good way.  There is a phenomenon which is called hybrid vigor.  This is well observed.  After a cross, plants will grow a bit larger, a bit more vigorous, fruit will be a bit bigger - in short this is why hybrids are sold - they offer just a bit more harvest, because the plants have this hybrid vigor.  This will decrease with every future generation grown from the hybrid seeds.  IIRR it gets halved in each generation, by the time of F4 and F5 there is very little extra vigor left.

[Robert_Brenchley]

There are people out there who take an F1 they like and 'dehybridise' it, breeding it over several generations to produce a very similar open-pollinated variety.

[cleo]

As regards tomato plants I grow very few F1 hybrids and never save the seed of those I do(sweet milion being an exception as it`s not really a hybrid anyway)

But the only reason for that is that I sell plants and have to be sure that what I offer is true.

For `home use` why not save the seed and see?

[Vinlander]

PS:  have just read your last post about garlic, where you say what you mean by going triffid, ie growing huge and not in a good way.  There is a phenomenon which is called hybrid vigor.  This is well observed.  After a cross, plants will grow a bit larger, a bit more vigorous, fruit will be a bit bigger - in short this is why hybrids are sold - they offer just a bit more harvest, because the plants have this hybrid vigor.  This will decrease with every future generation grown from the hybrid seeds.  IIRR it gets halved in each generation, by the time of F4 and F5 there is very little extra vigor left.

Well actually I was just making fun of the seed companies and those customers who naively believe their propaganda - it seems that people throw up their hands in shock/horror at the very idea of saving seed; as if  - for example - the new plant might eat your dog or kidnap your wife.

What you say about retention of some vigour actually backs up the idea that this is a massive over-reaction.

In fact the seed you save will generally produce a recognisable plant and a useful yield - and as you say could be the starting point for an even more useful strain (which might gain other qualities like fitness for local conditions at each stage of  the selection process - even while the extra vigour dissipates).

It's also another example of amateur gardening being browbeaten into spuriously following the lead of industrial-scale horticulture.

The most galling example at the moment is the difficulty I have sourcing sweetcorn varieties that don't aspire to all the flavour of a sugar cube.

Fortunately I have an open pollinated corn that I'm happy to grow on, but unfortunately it's looking like I'll never again have the opportunity of trying a new variety.

Don't get me wrong - the old varieties were pretty useless to farmers - only make sense when you grow them yourself - and the new ones are a boon to the farmer, the frozen food business and the general populace.

It's simply pointless to offer them to us in a seed catalogue!

Unless there are people who have some objection to picking them and eating them the same evening. I suppose some people want to fill their freezer with corncobs - probably the worst waste of space I can think of.

Cheers.

[galina]

Well actually I was just making fun of the seed companies and those customers who naively believe their propaganda - it seems that people throw up their hands in shock/horror at the very idea of saving seed; as if  - for example - the new plant might eat your dog or kidnap your wife.

In fact the seed you save will generally produce a recognisable plant and a useful yield - and as you say could be the starting point for an even more useful strain (which might gain other qualities like fitness for local conditions at each stage of  the selection process - even while the extra vigour dissipates).

It's also another example of amateur gardening being browbeaten into spuriously following the lead of industrial-scale horticulture.

The seed companies want to make a living and they make it more and more with hybrid seeds.  With all the advertising tricks the punter perceives they have bought added value and the benefits are sure to be reaped.  Seeds that must be bought and cannot be saved, that's more money to the companies.   As the gardener never knows what has gone into the hybrid mix, any control has been taken away.  The image is one of high-tech, too difficult for us gardeners and of course it comes with an implied 'dire warning', lest we should wish to reduce their profit by propagating from them.  I don't want give the impression that no hybrid is worth having, just that when we do buy them, we need to know what we are getting.

As an aside and not exactly on topic:  The really annoying fact with F1s is that most hybrid seed  has a run of 5 years, ie one hybridising process, then the resulting seed will be sold over 5 years and in many cases will never reappear.  So if the gardener happened to like a certain hybrid variety, chances are they have to live with '...  has been superceded by ......'.  Maybe Sungold tomato will be safe for a while, due to its overall popularity.  But looking at a catalogue from ten years ago shows how many hybrids are gone. 

At least with open pollinated varieties the gardener can choose to become a seedsaver and keep them alive into the future.  Yesterday's wonderful F1 really has gone forever.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I agree, F1's are a con. If farmers rebelled and insisted on selecting their own, would anyone notice?

I'd love to have enough space to be able to breed my own corn variety; early, long-lasting and tasty. Maybe one day.

[1066]

Nevertheless I've had at least 10 positive results, no negative ones.

Can I ask what the 10 positives were? Kind of curious, plus the thought of spending big bucks on F1s and not being able to save seed kind of makes me grumpy!!

1066  :)

[Vinlander]

Nevertheless I've had at least 10 positive results, no negative ones.

Can I ask what the 10 positives were? Kind of curious, plus the thought of spending big bucks on F1s and not being able to save seed kind of makes me grumpy!!

1066  :)

It's a fair question - as I said I may have just been lucky, and I only save seed from those plants where it's easy to do so - so it's hardly a comprehensive range...

In my early and impressionable years (in the late 1970s) I was as convinced as anyone by the F1 idea and probably bought F1 sweetcorn more often than any other kind (being wind pollinated probably helped to reduce the price difference).

Even so I made a habit of using the previous year's leftover seeds to fill any gaps in the square.

Since I only sowed one or two new packets of sweetcorn a year (a measly 40-80 seeds on average) there were plenty of gaps, and plenty of 2nd generation plants went in to fill them.

I never noticed any significant difference in earliness, yield or flavour (though I seldom used 3rd or 4th generation seed because fresh 2nd gen was usually to hand).

I could probably count this habit alone as 10 fair trials - doubly so as producing a sweetcorn early enough for UK conditions was an uphill struggle for the breeders (I think their first success was in the  1950s or 60s).

Still, I have also had good results from one F1 parsnip, and a couple of F1 tomatoes before I settled on using just Gardeners' Delight plus the seeds from my taste trials of M&S selections (they are the best).

One of the F1s was Sungold, but I only tried 2nd generation when the original packet ran out, and then for only a couple of years before I found out that by taking axil growths as cuttings you can get 5-10 early plants from just one very early shop-bought plant.

I've also had good 2nd and 3rd generation results from Red Baron onions - though some of you will say it isn't now sold as F1 - but it used to be...

I may think of some others later - partly it depends on whether cucurbits really count - you almost always get an obvious cross with them - which rather muddies the water.

Cheers.

[triffid]

Sooooo unkind! I've never kidnapped anyone's wife. Or (knowingly... ) eaten anyone's dog.
 ;)

[Vinlander]

I could probably count this habit alone as 10 fair trials - doubly so as producing a sweetcorn early enough for UK conditions was an uphill struggle for the breeders (I think their first success was in the  1950s or 60s).

I should have said dwarf early sweetcorn (I've just seen Browns are selling a tall variety from the C19).

I'd also like to ask for an expert opinion on hybrid vigour:

How different/unrelated do the parents have to be to produce a significant amount of hybrid vigour??

My gut feeling is that it is quite a lot - to the extent that one of them would have looked entirely different - maybe not even looked like a useful vegetable.

I'm not aware of any ruling tight enough to guarantee that F1 seeds are from parents different enough to generate hybrid vigour.

Do the seedsmen simply have to cross two specified varieties; each of sufficient purity to guarantee the outcome?

In the case of flowers it is fairly common to cross two different species within the same genus (or even family) but the result has a new botanical name specifying what 'went into it'.

It's also fairly common in fruit breeding (genuine hybrid x labrusca grapes, hybrid berries etc.).

But how often is this done for veg? I've never seen anyone trumpeting it like they do for fruit.

Cheers.

[1066]

thanks for the info Vinlander, I guess sweetcorn and cucumbers are the type of seeds I was also thinking about - so expensive, such measly numbers in the packets etc. Interesting to hear your results

LOL at you Triffid  :D  :D  :D

[GrannieAnnie]

Now I don't know what to do!  I was so positively convinced of the superiority of my Betterboy F1 tomato crop this year, having used up the end of a very old packet of seeds which all grew spectacularly, that I was going to buy more next year and plant mostly Betterboys.
If instead I just save the seed, will I have a much poorer crop and waste a season? Hmmmm. ???

[galina]

Now I don't know what to do!  I was so positively convinced of the superiority of my Betterboy F1 tomato crop this year, having used up the end of a very old packet of seeds which all grew spectacularly, that I was going to buy more next year and plant mostly Betterboys.
If instead I just save the seed, will I have a much poorer crop and waste a season? Hmmmm. ???

If the hybrid Betterboy is wonderful for you, stick with it!  There are no guarantees that you will get equally good performance if you grow from your own seed.  

I am not sure whether they are a genuine F1 hybrid, but let us assume they are.  The seeds you will save and grow from will be the F2 generation.  After a cross the F1 generation has the most hybrid vigor.  The F2 generation has less vigor but the greatest diversity.  There will be all sorts, some like the varieties involved in the cross and some that have some characteristics from one parent and some from the other.  A real random mix.  From these different and diverse plants (which are all tomatoes but vary in performance widely), you can select promising types and save seed from those.  If you do this for a few years, you will end up with a new variety that is stable.  But if you want Betterboys, as good as you had this year, you need to buy fresh hybrid seed.

[Digeroo]

then the resulting seed will be sold over 5 years and in many cases will never reappear.  So if the gardener happened to like a certain hybrid variety, chances are they have to live with '...  has been superceded by ......'.  Maybe Sungold tomato will be safe for a while, due to its overall popularity. 

I have fallen for Amoroso Brussel sprout sonly to find they have disappeared.  Sungold meanwhile seems to be loosing its flavour and vigour.  The ones I grew from an old packet were much better.

I have enjoyed various experiments in seeds saving and have never produced a triffid.  My runner beans tolerate the dry conditions very well and it took a much shorter time than expected for the adaption to occur. 

[galina]

I have fallen for Amoroso Brussel sprout sonly to find they have disappeared.  Sungold meanwhile seems to be loosing its flavour and vigour.  The ones I grew from an old packet were much better.

Interesting about Sungold and I wonder whether others have noticed the same.  Could it be that the seed companies have tried to breed an open pollinated version to make seed reproduction easier for themselves?  Wouldn't be the first time this sort of thing happens.  And loss of flavour and vigor could account for that.  

If you saved your own seed and grew it on and if there would be all different types in the next generation (with sungold mostly red, some cherry others plum shaped - complicated ancestry in the hybrid mix) then you'll know they are still a genuine hybrid.  If your results are uniform and look like Sungold, see above.

There are some good Sungold OP versions around, but apparently this tomato is particularly dificult to de-hybridise, because it has complex parentage.  I was given seeds from a seed friend who thought she had de-hybridised a stable OP version.  But when I grew them I got yellows, reds, none of the Sungold colour, some with the same delicious flavour, others not.  My favourite, a delicious solid orange yellow plum shaped tomato, did not come true either, and its most promising offspring, a red plum with a little peak at the base, is not totally stable yet either and doesn't bear many fruits.  It is great fun growing all these, even if none are Sungold.

[Robert_Brenchley]

If the hybrid Betterboy is wonderful for you, stick with it!  There are no guarantees that you will get equally good performance if you grow from your own seed.  

I am not sure whether they are a genuine F1 hybrid, but let us assume they are.  The seeds you will save and grow from will be the F2 generation.  After a cross the F1 generation has the most hybrid vigor.  The F2 generation has less vigor but the greatest diversity.  There will be all sorts, some like the varieties involved in the cross and some that have some characteristics from one parent and some from the other.  A real random mix. 

Tomatoes are normally self-pollinated, and are unlikely to show hybrid vigour. If you want to see some results from breeding out F1 toms, have a look through the blog here: http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/

[galina]

Tomatoes are normally self-pollinated, and are unlikely to show hybrid vigour.

Scientists disagree with this statement.  For example:
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2004-09/1094513481.Bt.r.html

When Daughter of the Soil wrote about lack of tomato hybrid vigor in her blog, she also got replies to say that there IS hybrid vigor in tomatoes.  Quote from corespondent kctomato: I have noticed several authors now incorrectly writing about F1 tomatoes with the assumption of no hybrid vigor. This is not the case.  end of quote.  The writer quotes from several scientific studies.  One of those states: Maximum effect of heterosis calculated in comparison with the better parent was 22.6% for leaf length, 1.9% for internode length, 6.9% for plant height, 5.6% for number of inflorescences per plant, 9.2% for number of fruit per plant, 16.5% for fruit weight and 67.2% for yield per plant.end of quote.
Url here:
http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2006/07/f1-hybrids-what-every-gardener-should.html

Not exactly triffids, but the effect is there.

[GrannieAnnie]

My problem with that is I'd have to grow out many plants, all taking space, and some would have to be of lesser productivity or taste. The seed growers are earning their pay in that regard.
Plus they send out a seed brochure to drool over in winter. ;D