If you saved seeds from a hybrid tomato and planted them, would the resulting plants be one or the other of the two parents? (Let's keep it simple by not having more than that.) Or could you come up with an entirely different tomato not like the hybrid and not like either parent?
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If you planted the saved F2 seeds from a known hybrid you wouldn't really get plants that resemble either parent genetically. You're assuming that there are only two parents and that was true with some of the earliest hybrids bred but is not true for more modern hybrids where there are two breeding lines, both OP, that lead to the creation of the final hybrid and each line can have up to maybe 4 genetic inputs.

YEs, some have tried dehybridizing a known heirloom and I did it with Ramapo F1 , which is one of the earlier hybrids that has only two parents, and others have done it with Sungold F1 and Big Boy and Dona and others.

I tried to dehybridize Big Boy but only to get out the one parent, Teddy Jones, a large pink heirloom from the midwest, and Dr. Oved Schifriss, who bred Big Boy, told me that I'd be lucky to get out only about 80% of the genes for Teddy Jones.

(I've read threads where people are enthusiastically "dehybridizing" tomatoes and have wondered if the aim is to grow one or the other parent or rather a new plant altogether. I've been unable to understand what the goal is. Tomato Fest has seeds of a dehybridized Big Beef that seems to have most of the BB characteristics but is OP. It's just not clear to me if it's a "new tomato" or just one of the BB parents.)

Since one can never get out 100% of the genes of any known hybrid such as Big Beef, you can only assume it has most of the traits of the original hybrid by growing both and comparing.

The goal in dehybridizing known hybrids is to get an OP version that resembles the original OP so that hybrid seeds don't have to be bought. Another goal for just a few folks is tog et out just one parent, but I don't know of others who have tried that other than myself with Big Boy and Teddy Jones, although there must be others who have their own projects.

The other situation is where quite a few folks now are doing their own crosses, creating hybrids and then dehybridizing those to look for interesting plants/fruits in the F2 and F3 generations, making selections, and then continuing to grow out and make selections to get an OP derivative that's genetically stable in that all seeds planted give the same plants/fruits.

There are also those situations where an accidental cross has occurred to create a hybrid and sometimes folks save the F2 seeds, etc., and plant out just to see what they get.

So any OP version of a known hybrid doesn't usually have all the genes that the original hybrid had.

I'm linking to the website of Keith, who posts here so you can read about dehybridization and how long it would take to get nearer and nearer to 100% of the genes back.

I should live so long. LOL

From the home page click on CULTURE and then select what you want from the other links shown.

An excellent explanation of making crosses, dehybridizing by making selections, etc.

Does that answer most of your questions?

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Online Tomato Vine

Yes, Carolyn, that answers most of my questions! Thank you.

I can see why people are so fascinated by applied tomato genetics! The golden ring for some must be "the best-tasting biggest tomato in the world"!

Now, off to read your link.

I've seen posts here and other places where people claimed that growing out various commercial hybrids resulted in an offspring that was either just like the parent or very close to the parent. I didn't believe it and started experimenting myself. Although for the most part they don't resemble the parent that much if at all I have found some interesting things. One example is Big Zac. I haven't grown out that many F2, but so far I have not seen an example yet where any of the offspring throws out big fruit like the parent. However, one of the F2 had what I consider to be excellent tasting fruit and was guite productive. I think it's worth stabalizing, but I haven't gotten around to it. If I were to try to stabalize it, I wouldn't be trying to match either of the parents (in fact the original goal was quite the opposite), but to get something I like/a new variety.

Just trying to add a little to the discussion. :)

Randy

Someone gave me seeds saved from a purple haze. The offspring seedlings were 50% PL and 50% RL.

The RL offspring produced fruiting branches with 5 or 6 1.5 inch beefsteaks the with colouration and flavour like Black Cherry. Texture could have been better, but might have been due to 2008 weather. Saved some seeds from those, and I see that most of the seedlings are PL. Will be interesting to see how they turn out. Could be an excellent salad tomato if the texture is better than last year.

The PL offspring produced fruiting branches with 7 to 10 ping pong ball sized, very slightly egg shaped fruit with a pinkish interior, and although the season did not allow a lot of them to ripen, the few that did had some fruity flavours that were more like a sweet plum fruit or sweet cherry fruit than they were like a tomato. Those seedlings are still too small to determine leaf type, but I am going to grow out as many as I can fit to see if that taste is there again, and if so will save seeds and see how they are next year. At least one fruit that I had from this plant had what I might describe as a profoundly fruity flavour.

This is all part of the fun and adventure of growing tomatoes...