Hello all! I was wondering if it is worth it to save seeds from a hybrid tomato such as Lemon Boy or Sweet 100? Would the resulting tomato be similar? Thanks for any thoughts.

*****

Just my own opinion here, but no, I don't think it's worth it. (smile)

But if you want to have some fun and have lots of space it might be an interesting project and many others have done the same.

Saved F2 seeds from known named hybrids do not usually give back something similar to the original but it depends on the specific hybrid and how many genetic inputs went into the hybrid.

The earliest hybrids such as Big Boy and Better Boy and Ramapo and some of the Harris hybrids, for instance, have just two parents , and that still doesn't mean you'd get something out initially that resembled them.

But later hybrids can have up to 8 different genetic inputs, 4 in each of the two OP breeding lines that lead up to that hybrid.

BTW, there is an OP version of Lemon Boy around.

So your choice entirely on what you want to accomplish, how much space you have and what you want to select for and how many years you want to spend doing it. ( smile)

Carolyn

I saved some sweet million seeds from last year and planted a couple of them since quenching my curiosity was worth more than the space I had available. So far, they seem to be cherries, but they are not ripe yet so that's all I can tell you. I've read stories from people that have had luck with the cherries, but your mileage may vary, of course.

If you have space with no plants to fill them, go for it. I had planted what I wanted to try and had a couple of extra slots and thought, "why not?". But if had been between the F2 hybrids and a KBX, the F2's would have been tossed.

Lemon Boy: No, in my experience, it's not worth saving seeds from Lemon Boy. The F1 is superior to the grow-outs. Well, you might get lucky if you grew out a few dozen per year for a while, who knows. But for a small plot grower, I think you're wasting time. Just buy the F1 if you happen to like it.

Sweet 100s: Maybe better chance of getting good results from this one. Never done it myself, but I imagine you might get something close to one of the parents, Gardener's Delight, which itself is a great cherry tomato. Hey, why not just grow Gardener's Delight? It's open pollinated already ... no surprises.

Glory: I think you'd be pleased with some of the results of growing out this hybrid. Just my opinion from my own experience. I'm sure there must be other hybrids that will give good subsequent generation results. Luck of the draw mostly.

Carolyn, why not tell GardeningHarpist about growing out Ramapo hybrid?

I tried it with Lemon Boy once and the seeds didn't even germinate. I've had much different results with Big Mama and Brandy Boy. I just put my F3 Big Mamas and F6 Brandy Boys in the ground today. It's been an interesting experiment, and so far the later generations are true to the F1s, but not a commercially viable project.
John A

Carolyn, why not tell GardeningHarpist about growing out Ramapo hybrid?

*****

Can do.

For a while Ramapo F1 went out of production and since it was a fave of quite a few folks I decided to dehybridize it, aka, make selections, to see if I could develop an OP version that was close to the original.

I had available to me some Ramapo F1 seeds as well as a 6 pack of Ramapo F1 plants that a friend in NJ sent to me, b'c several growers had sandbagged seeds, worried that Ramapo F1 might go out of production.

Ramapo F1 has two parents as I indicated above.

I saved seeds from F1 fruits, now called the F2 seeds, planted out the next year, I think only 4 plants and also planted out known Ramapo F1 plants from the seed I had for comparison sake.

3/4 plants walked and talked and tasted like the F1 and the 4th plant was a throw back to one of the parents.

I saved seed, now F3 seed from one of the F2 plants that compared well with the original F1 and at that point I felt that the F3 seed was pretty darn good as an OP and distributed seed to quite a few folks.

One person formerly was a commercial tomato grower in NJ and he also thought it was pretty good, and as the years went by folks shared seed with others and I know it was doing fine out to the F6 generation.

Ramapo F1 was developed by Rutgers U in NJ and they've now made the original F1 seed and it's available from Rutgers directly and also from Harris Seeds in Rochester, NY.

Usually it takes more generations than to the F3 to get something genetically stabilized so I got lucky on this one.

The variety now known as OTV Brandywine I had to take out to the F5 before it was stable.

Carolyn

I planted out seeds that were (supposedly) saved from a Purple Haze (cross between Brandywine, Black Cherry, and Cherokee Purple I believe...3 of my top 5 or 6). Two of the plants that I got produced excellent fruits; one was regular leafed and produced small 1.5 inch beefsteak tomatoes in bunches of 5 or 6, they had the colour and flavour of black cherry and were so good that I saved seeds from them and have grown them out this year. The other was potato leafed and produced slightly egg shaped golf-ball sized pinky tomatoes that grew in bunches of 8 to 10 fruits and tasted much more like a sweet plum than they tasted like a tomato, saved seeds from that also. Growing both out this year, so far the small beefsteak regular leaf seeds have produced mostly potato leaf offspring, and the other had produced all potato leaf offspring. Plants look good so far, hopefully the fruits resemble their parents, and I think it was worth it to save seeds. However, if it was not for the parents, I would not have saved the seeds...pretty certain I would not bother saving lemon boy or sweet million seeds (and probably would not grow them in the first place, if I may be so bold).

Thanks to everyone for your input. Happy gardening!!