I had a question about saving seeds to continue to grow your own tomatoes indefinitely. I have read that only the best fruit should be selected for seed saving. Why is this so important? Shouldn't it be based on the overall plants performance rather than the individual fruits performance? Correct me if I am wrong but if you want a larger fruit you should choose fruit from plants that consistently produce a fruit larger than the normal rather than a single fruit that just happen to be largest from a plant that produced a lower average size fruit. But the best fruit from the best plants should be chosen correct?

*****

Chris, it's one thing to save seeds and an additional concern if one wants to maintain biological diversity within a variety the way I see it.

So to maintain diverity it's best to save fruits for seed production from more than one plant and to not select just the best and biggest fruits but to chose all the different sizes that are to be found.

*******
How many plants (of a single variety) should I plan on growing/collecting from each season to keep a good diversity in the genes?

Much of the early literature on this said to plant 8 plants of each variety and to save seeds from the fruits of the inner four plants. But that begs the issue of what's in the next row over and other complications. I think it's perhaps best to say that one should not save fruits from just one plant and it's better to save fruits from at least two plants and more if you have them. Again, the concept of biological diversity is what dictates using fruits from many plants. I used to use two plants most of the time and only a few times I used just one when it was a rare variety and only one plant was available.

*****
After several generations (of a single variety) if I only choose fruit from the plants that grew the best will my plants be more adapted to my location? My location is hot and humid South FL.

Adaptation does not happen so quickly and with tomatoes I'm not sure it ever happens. What you're talking about here is a landrace and research has shown that, for instance, with Ethiopian wheat it took thousands of years for adaptation. So I wouldn't plan on it happening.

******

For example if I got seeds from someone who grew several generations of their tomatoes in Fl would they potentially do better than someone who's seeds came from Maine?

No, I don't think so. I've received seeds from folks who live in many different countries and climates and they've been family heirlooms grown for many years and regardless of where they came from they did fine in my zone 5 garden. I can list varieties in the SSE Yearbook that I've grown for many generations, as do many SSE members, and those seeds usually do just fine whereever they end up.

*****
I understand genetics and evolution and it seems that the two questions above would be true but you never know so I figured I would ask those that have been growing tomatoes longer than me.

I don't know if my answers are helpful, but I've grown over 2000 varieties and started being exposed to all aspects of tomatoes when I was about 5 on the family farm. I''ll be 69 in June and that's a long tomato career, although most of my personal growing took place after 1982. ( smile)

Carolyn

Thanks for the response Carolyn. You cleared up so much for me. I guess in my mind I was expecting a variety to possibly adapt when really a new variety would be needed to do that (if I wanted it to happen in less than 1000years).

Thanks again,
Chris