To the plant, pollination is pollination. To the gardener who wants particular results (such as wanting to keep an heirloom variety pure), cross-pollination (cross-breeding) is something to avoid. To a grower or scientist who is trying to create a new variety, cross-pollination is desirable. It's all on your point of view. Like Dave said, some varieties are very genetically stable, like his Nantes carrots. Others, like curcubits, are notorious for cross-pollinating. If you're growing certain kinds of decorative gourds, and zucchini or other squashes, insects will cross-pollinate them very easily, and if you saved the seeds from your wonderful zucchini and planted them, they could end up being something almost unrecognizable and tasteless. "Does cross pollination always create a hybrid?" Yes and no. Technically, every pollinated plant is producing a hybrid, because every plant from every seed has a tiny, microscopic difference from the plant next to it, although it is, for most purposes, the same. Only cuttings, cloned or tissue-cultured plants are exactly the same as the parent stock. Plants labeled 'hybrids' have been crossed from plants with noticeably different qualities. If you crossed two of these 'hybrids', they would most likely revert back to the qualities of one or the other of the 'parents'. Granny Smith apples came from crabapples. If you planted a Granny Smith seed and nutured it for several years, you would probably end up with some sort of crabapple or similar variation. Two additional bits of info (just to confuse you a little more ;-) ): 1) You can be growing two similar plants near each other, but if they flower at different times, they won't (can't) cross-pollinate. Corn is a good example: there are early, mid-season and late varieties of corn. Corn cross-pollinates easily because it's wind-borne, but if they tassle (the 'flower') at different times and there is no other corn around (esp upwind), they won't cross. If Alfie's apples (above) needed a pollinator variety, and he accidentally planted a variety that bloomed a month after his Macintosh, he wouldn't get any apples. 2) OP varieties can be 'manipulated' even within the variety. You can have a packet of seed of a single variety of an OP plant, and each seed inside will have a tiny difference about it. Many people will grow a particular variety that they like, and they will watch for 'special' ones among that variety: a tiny bit earlier, a slightly larger fruit, a sweeter flavor, a slightly higher yield, etc, and they will mark it and let a few fruits of that plant mature and collect the seed. The next year, they plant that seed, and again look for 'special' plants. Every year, they keep doing this, and end up (hopefully) with localized variety within a named variety that is especially suited to their local conditions. It's still the same variety, it's still OP, it's just an improved variation within that variety. If you bought seeds from a grower in BC, and you bought the same variety from a grower in ON, the local seeds might produce plants that had a slight edge on local conditions, concerning earliness, adaptibility to hot summers, or ability to grow with a bit less water. The seeds from BC might adapt better to cooler summers, more humidity, and a longer season.

Hi! I am looking for a non hybrid, or stable hybrid that I can save seeds from, but prefer open pollinated or heirloom.. Napa, Michihili, Chinese Cabbage Seeds! Please have a peek at my list & see if there's anything you'd like. I have other things that are not listed, I just have not updated my list. I'll get around to it eventually, though. LOL :) Also- If you have anything else heirloom/open pollinated that's Asian or that you think is interesting, please let me know! Maybe we will decide we want to do a bigger trade!! :D Thinks I'd be interested in: Korean peppers Asian persimmons Muscadines Asian pears European pears Berries - any and all, cuttings or seeds Root vegetables (burdock, carrots, etc) Greens, Lettuces, etc.. Miner's Lettuce Yuzu Ume Plum Fruiting Quince Trifoliate Oranges Flying Dragon Trifoliate Orange Figs Peaches Plums Pears Apples (not seeds) Wineberry Popcorn Beans - Anything except pintos or something that tastes like pintos! Peas Pigeon Pea Monk Pea Tomatoes Wild stuff (ramps/wild leeks, stinging nettles, miner's lettuce, Jerusalem Artichokes, etc) Jasmine Rice Sweet Rice Barley Quinoa Edible Amaranth Edible Sumac Sunflowers Etc, Etc, Etc.. I have lots of stuff on my wish list! :) http://members.gardenweb.com/members/exch/doku Thanks for your time!

There are perhaps two sides to your question. The first has to do with buying open-pollinated or heirloom seeds and the second has to do with saving seeds from open-pollinated plants. And unfortunately the two aspects are not necessarily related. Some species of plants naturally self-pollinate - that means their seeds are formed because the pollen of the same plant fertilizes the ovules (the egg). Some species of plants naturally cross-pollinate - that means their seeds are formed because pollen from a different plant fertilizes the ovules. Some species of plants form their seeds from both self-pollination and cross-pollination. Often an open-pollinated/heirloom variety is grown in total isolation from all other varities of the same plant species. In this case it does not matter much whether the plant self-pollinates or cross-pollinates since all the nearby plants that can provide pollen are very similar. The seeds will all be very similar and produce plants of the heirloom variety. That is how commercial seed growers would produce an open-pollinated variety to insure purity of the seed. But if you grow an heirloom plant near a different plant of the same species and they can cross-pollinate then the seeds (or some of them) will not be the original heirloom variety. If you grow only one open-pollinated variety of each species then as long as your neighbours do not grow the same species your seeds are very likely to be pure. If the variety you grow naturally self-pollinates (in a very high proportion) then your seeds are likely to be pure. For most other seeds you could name the seed parent (but not the pollen parent) and indicate that the seeds were produced by natural open pollination as suggested above. Both open-pollinated and hybrid varieties may have a 'name'. For example Brandywine tomato is an heirloom open-pollinated variety but Carnival tomato is a hybrid. In seed catalogs hybrids are nearly always identified as such and open-pollinated or heirloom are also nearly always identified. Hosta, Irises, Lilies, Daylilies, Peonies and similar perennials are hybrids even when not so identified. That is because there are few if any open-pollinated varieties or strains of these species. However, you can grow the original species of these plants and they are likely to be open-pollinated and come true from seed. Occasionally, a mutant of the orignal species is good enough to grow in gardens and there are some of these that also may come true from seed.

Thanks for the info. As Carolyn said I might, I have one last question. When you bag the blooms of the tomatoes you want to save, you don't have to bag the blooms on the whole plant or plants, just on the blooms that will create a few tomatoes for you to save the seed from, right? I've never heard of bagging blooms before this post, so thank you all very much. The FAQ was really good, too, but I did have to search for it. I've provided a link below in case anyone else wants to review it. ~Angela Here is a link that might be useful: How Do I Prevent Tomatoes from Cross-pollinating?