You should not be surprised. Most new cultivars will not come true from seed.

While we are discussing this - you should never label seed with the cultivar name as if it is the same plant.

'Oranges and Lemons' is a patented form of Gaillardia x grandiflora, a hybrid. Very few hybrids - if they are not sterile - ever come true from seed and that would be valid for the echinaceas as well. As these are also patented plants, it is pretty much a given that seed production generating true clones is not going to happen. Propagation is done from cuttings or divisions only and is restricted to those licensed by the breeder to do so.

As mentioned, even excluding hybrids very few named cultivars will come true from collected seeds, especially in a garden setting. There are too many variables involved, including those helpful pollinators like bees, travelling all over here and there and picking up pollen from whatever they touch. Seed collection in a commercial or wholesale growing operation is very highly controlled to eliminate as many of these variables as possible. And even then you will frequently get seed strains that will offer similar but not necessarily exact characteristics of the mother plant. This is why you cannot legitimately call a seed raised plant by its official cultivar name.

Gardengal, if you see this, I would be interested to know how it is that sterile hybrids can come true from seed. Someone on these forums told me that Profusions Zinnias fit into this category, and I believe him. But doesn't sterile, by definition, mean they don't produce seed?

I'm not Gardengal, but I can provide an answer to that question. Breeders do a lot work developing inbred strains - after generations of self crossing (which, with annuals like Zinnias, for example, doesn't necessarily take very long), these strains have very stable sets of characteristics that come true from seed. Then they cross two of these strains where the two parents have characteristics they are trying to combine, and see what comes up. This is what is called an F1 hybrid - because each of the parents is so inbred, all of the hybrid progeny will be essentially the same. If the resulting F1 plants turn out to be desirable, the seed producers can continue to produce the F1 seeds as long as they maintain the original inbred parent strains. Whether the F1 plants are fertile or sterile never figures into it.

- Steve

That is not precisely correct :-) Sterile means just that - the seed produced by these plants, whether natural or contrived hybrids, inbred, F1 or otherwise, is unfertile and will not germinate. This is NOT the case with 'Profusion' zinnias.

Steve - mostly correct, but:

1) The first children of any cross is called F1 - not just in the case you described.
2) Has nothing to do with being 'very inbred'. All it needs is two parents, that when crossed create a consistent F1 off spring. In fact the more inbred the parents are, the less likely this will be the case.

This discussion is very interesting to me. Is there a rule of thumb to use when saving seeds, if you want the same plant as the parent? The only thing I do know is that you can't expect exact replicas from F1 Hybrids.

Or in other words, besides the F1 Hybrids, if you don't see the seeds for sale in a seed catalog somewhere, you probably won't be able to grow that plant from saved seed????

Linda

I have found that if you plant enough seeds of a plant you can get at least a few of the seedlings to be very close to the original. I have an After Midnight coneflower which looks just like the original and it came from seeds. I have also developed a new Orange blooming coneflower from saving seeds of various orange coneflowers. My orange coneflower is more vigourous and has many more blooms than the parents. You can sometimes find a plant that is even better than the original.

Hi All,
There's a couple things being mixed together and I think that is why there's some confusion.
When breeding SEEDS for sale such as Big Zac or Big Beef. There is a very complex process similar to what Steve/Greenguy1 was refering to. I once saw a video on the process and it is a very lengthy process of what they do to ensure all the thousands of seeds sold are exactly the same. That is why hybrid seed of veggies or flowers cost so much more.

When breeding PLANTS, the breeder can cross what ever two cultivars they want, grow a lot of seedlings, and pick plants that meet their criteria for possible sale. From the plant, a new hybrid, chosen, new plants must be propagated by asexual means. Which means by division, tissue culture, etc. not by seed.

Seed saved from a hybrid plant, will not be exactly like parent. Depending on the parents, grandparents, etc., they make look very similar or they could be incredibly different. People do grow out lots of seeds of plants(people often do this with tomatoes. It is called dehybridizing) to find babies that do resemble the parent. Then seeds of the closest plant are saved(if one is found.) Then those are planted again to find a seedling that closest resembles the original plant seeds were saved from. For tomatoes, this takes about 5-7 generations before the seedlings are stable and all look identical. At that time, you have an Open Pollinated plant that can be named as a new OP version of the original.

As far as sterile goes, sometimes when lots of inbreeding is done to get desired characteristics, sterility can happen. It doesn't happen often though, most plants produce viable seed. Also sometimes sterility has to do with they type of plant and not inbreeding. Some plants that make offsets by tubers, don't readily produce seed or possibly not at all. Chocolate Cosmos is a plant that falls under this category.

I have to go to work now. I hope I explained this simply and well.
Remy

Or in other words, besides the F1 Hybrids, if you don't see the seeds for sale in a seed catalog somewhere, you probably won't be able to grow that plant from saved seed????

That's a pretty good generalization :-)) Saving seeds from the straight species rather than named cultivars or any hybrids is typically quite successful. However, some plants self-hybridize extremely easily so you will get wide variations in colors and appearance if collecting the seeds from these. And if the plant is patented (as with many of the newest and 'hottest' introductions), seed collection is often fruitless - 'scuze the pun - as these will seldom resemble the parent plant or the seed will be sterile. That's why propagation of these patented plants is asexual to ensure exact replication (and also restricted to those licensed to do so).

Thanks gardengal! I have been trying to come up with a general rule of thumb to go by. I enjoyed doing some winter sowing and would like to continue. But I do want what I want, and not surprises, so I would like to know which plants are more likely to reproduce true to their seeds so I don't waste my time.

Linda