My understanding is you must save seeds from open-pollinated varieties. These will be true to the mother plant.

It is generally recommend that you save the seed from several different fruit from the plant for the best genetic sampling. And as fireduck said, only seed from open-pollinated are normally saved. Hybrid seeds will not breed true.

Dave

You save seeds of THE VERY BEST of anything. Bigger, healthier plants/fruits with nice form and shape ... is more likely to produce better plants than a small, deformed, ... fruit.
It is the same idea in breeding farm animals.

This post was edited by seysonn on Sat, Aug 17, 13 at 3:41

You can save seeds from any of the fruit from an OPEN POLLINATED variety. I agree with Dave that the best thing is to sample several of the fruit. You can even keep the samples from each plant separate from each other. This will let you test seysonn's statements.

A few years back, I successfully woke up 22 year old seed from a large beefsteak that had been handed down in my family for more than 60 years. The one single plant gave me one small 4 ounce tomato. Fortunately, it had good mature seeds. The next year, from that small fruit, the seeds produced large beefsteaks that averaged 14 ounces. This was the correct size.

So, based on my experience, I would have to say that the size of the fruit is not essential. If that is true, then it has to be in the DNA. Add to that growing conditions of the new plant and the total environment the seeds were produced in. My experience is that healthy seeds in a perfect growing environment will produce the best fruit - whether or not the largest or the best tasting show up is affected by all kinds of variables.

Example - This year, I started 3 plants for a variety from Russia. I gave one to my brother who lives about 3 miles away. I planted one and kept the other as my backup. Even though the seed came from the same fruit, my tomatoes were significantly larger than my brother's. My conclusion is that his growing conditions were different. Lots of things affect those wonderful fruits we all love so much.

Hope this helps.

I'm not an expert, but here is my thinking.

Healthy fruit will be more likely to have healthy, vigorous seeds. If you see any "double fruit," or funny-looking, deformed fruit, don't save seeds from those.

Genetically, I don't think it matters whether the fruit is large or small, but I think you will maximize your chances if you save seeds from among the best examples.

--McKenzie

For genetic preservation of a variety it's suggested that you save seeds from many fruits on one plant, not just the best lookng ones, better still from several fruits on more than one plant, well you get the picture.

Gee Ted, I do remember about getting those 22 yo seeds going of your family heirloom. LOL

Carolyn

Saving seeds from more than one fruits and THEN even further, from other plants(ON AND ON)may sound good. But you end up with 100s of seeds. BUT all you need and can use is couple of seeds the next season. You dont have THE LUXURY OF time to try too many of them.

That is why I belies you pick one good fruit from a healthy plant ans save seeds. ....LIFE IS TOO SHORT !!

Yes, Carolyn. It was your guidance and encouragement that kept me going when all seemed lost. Then, this little guy showed up one morning.

seysonn, you seem to be in a hurry. You know, I've always felt that life on this planet really celebrates its wonderful diversity. Planting only one or two seeds each year may be okay for some. I personally prefer a few more than that. Most years I germinate about 750 to 1000 or so. It lets me select seedlings that are vibrant and vigorous. When the garden is filled with 250 or so plants, I give the rest away to folks who can't get heirlooms and OP's locally. No, I don't give away sick seedlings. Those go to compost.

When the tomatoes start to flow in during the harvest (as they are doing now), I give away a lot of my best looking fruit to neighbors and the local senior assisted living center. I harvest seeds and then make juice from any and all remaining fruit. This works for me. I usually have 100 or so different varieties each year and I've had years when I saved more than 125,000 tomato seeds. And, yes, I give away a lot of seeds as well.

So, your method is good and it works for you. But there are other methods out here. You know, the diversity thing.

Take care

Ted

If all I wanted was a couple of seeds for the following year I wouldn't bother with all the work of seed saving. I'd just buy a packet of seeds and be set for 10 years or so.

The whole purpose of saving seeds is preservation of the variety itself. For that purpose I'll take 100s of seeds any day. That way I'll have plenty to plant my hundreds of plants next year and still have plenty left over to share or trade or insure variety survival even if I have several bad production years in a row.

I think they call that "seeing the BIG picture" rather than just the end of my nose.

Dave

Posted by containerted 6a (My Page) on
Sat, Aug 17, 13 at 17:24

seysonn, you seem to be in a hurry. You know, I've always felt that life on this planet really celebrates its wonderful diversity. Planting only one or two seeds each year may be okay for some. I personally prefer a few more than that. Most years I germinate about 750 to 1000 or so.....
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@containerted:
I was perhaps talking about an average backyard gardener, like myself, Not big farmers and commercial growers here.
Def, if you germinate 1000 seed, the you need perhaps diversify more.
About celebrating life, I do that everyday when I get up from my bed.That is why I don't like to do seeds bookkeeping and inventory management.
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Posted by digdirt 6b-7a North AR (My Page) on
Sat, Aug 17, 13 at 17:50

If all I wanted was a couple of seeds for the following year I wouldn't bother with all the work of seed saving. I'd just buy a packet of seeds and be set for 10 years or so.

The whole purpose of saving seeds is preservation of the variety itself.
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@ Dave, I partially answered you in the above response.

Yes, you are right "The whole purpose of saving seeds is preservation of the variety itself. .. ".
Or for me, it is something that I like.The other day I saw an organic heirloom tomato in the supermarket. Bought one and saved seed from it.

Even with a packet of seeds I can cover a whole standard city lot with tomato plants. It is not the couple of bucks. My time and efforts are much valuable than that.

FINALLY

I have a smallish veggie garden and there are only two of us (and the dogs) to eat the tomatoes. 18 tomato plants is more than we need, but I plant them because I like to have some variety, and I give many away to friends and neighbours. I have been saving seeds from one or two tomatoes of each variety, and labelling my packets with the year that I saved them.

I germinate 6 tomatoes from each variety, and grow the seedlings in individual containers. 6 is more than I need, and my extra seedlings are given away. I cannot see how saving more seeds from many fruit is really going to help the average small gardener like me, except for sharing in seed swaps, something new to me this year.

This year I had an anomaly with a variety of pear-shaped tomatoes turning into round ones. Had I saved and labelled the seeds from different fruit, it might have been an interesting study, but I will be able to go back and plant seeds from a previous year to get back my original pear-shaped tomatoes.

Linda

I am not commercial but I often have saved thousands of seeds for a single variety and that's b'c I list varieties with SSE and also make seed offers to share what I have. The first seed offers I made were when I was at AOL many years ago, then I switched to making seed offers here at GW, then elsewhere starting in 2006.

Each person should know what their seed needs are and act accordingly. My hope is that each person would buy at least half of their tomato seeds in order to help out the many small family owned seed businesses who are having problems in these economic times. And it's they who also are the main ones preserving varieties by making them available to the public.

Carolyn, who doesn't trade seeds and who for several years did a wrong varieties thread here at GW which was quite interesting. Ted, I loved that picture, I don't think I've seen it before. Kinda like a first picture to put in a baby book. Yes? LOL

Carolyn - "Kinda like a first picture to put in a baby book. Yes?"

Yes it is the first picture in the baby book for "Maiden's Gold" It's one of the few pictures where I have actually had a paper copy made.

And here's the way it came out.

To preserve a variety, you want more than one fruit from more than one plant. Ideally some fruit picked early in the season, some picked in the middle of the season and some picked late. (unless you are talking determinate tomatoes).

Even professional seed companies can sometimes end up with degenerated variety. Seeds of Change had noticed the Burbank Slicer had been getting smaller and less and less popular, and decided to discontinue it. The membership of my local seed library (Seed Library of Los Angeles) has taken up the task of restoring the variety to it's original size. Full story linked below.

The larger the breeding pool, the more stable and resilient your seeds will be. But for the average gardener, it may not be practical to grow and save seed from more than a couple varieties in any volume. That may be fine for individual purposes, but keep in mind you may unintentionally end up with something that differs from the original variety.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://slola.blogspot.com/search/label/Burbanks%20Red%20Slicing%20Tomato