You will get fruit, but, unless you planted Open Pollinated varieties, They may, or may not be tasty. There's nothing to lose from giving it a try though, You could try moving them around so that the spacing is correct.

In my previous garden, I always made sure to pick up all the tomato debris from my big tomato variety plants and I knew then that any volunteers would be from the cherry tomatoes. I would move them into rows and it saved me having to buy them.

Now that I raise all my own tomatoes from seed, I often cannot resist allowing a volunteer or two to grow, and I can usually figure out which variety it is because I don't grow that many different ones. Sometimes, it's great because if one of my home-grown plants should suffer a set back and need to be replaced, the volunteer can be used!

Next gardening season, I have great plans to grow may different varieties, and I won't have room to accommodate the volunteers. It will have to be zero tolerance on them, I'm afraid!

Linda

They are called volunteers from seeds from fruits that fell to the ground and made it throught the winter, or wherever you are b'c I could find no gardening zone for you at your page.

And yes, they will bear fruits, but whether the fruits will be the same as the original plants depends on whether the originals were hybrids or open pollinated varieties.

There's also the chance that what you get from those volunteers were the result of some cross pollination.

For many years I used to select 10 volunteers from the field where I was growing my tomatoes and transplant them to a side garden to see if I could ID the varieties,Sometimes I could, sometimes not,

But your volunteers will bear fruit, so if you want to transplant them out as I once did, it could be a lot of fun to see what you get.

Carolyn

Linda, we posted two minutes apart so I didn't get a chance to see what you posted.

Carolyn

Hi Carolyn,

Well at least we said pretty much the same thing (LOL). Except that you said it better!!!!

Linda

Thanks ladies! I am in South Florida. We were so excited to see them. Right now we have about 20 plants growing!!! 4 are very large. We will be thinning them out in the next few days.

Well, it depends how 'Name Specific" and "picky" one is about it. I have always been of the opinions that you are going to get a decent tomato, regardless. The seed, by the the law of HEREDITY and statistical probability may revert to one or both of its parents. The stronger gen will be more dominant.

Well, it depends how 'Name Specific" and "picky" one is about it. I have always been of the opinions that you are going to get a decent tomato, regardless. The seed, by the the law of HEREDITY and statistical probability may revert to one or both of its parents. The stronger gen will be more dominant.

%%%%%%

I usually cut and paste comments or questions so I can remember what was being asked. ( smile)

Dehybridization of a hybrid, whether a known one or an accidental one never reverts 100 % to either parent, or parents, in the case of more modern hybrids which have many parental inputs.

Why is that?

I'm linking below to Keth Mueller's superb website and starting on thepage where he uses eggs to demonstrate homozygosity vs heterozygosity.

Then go the next page, link at the bottom of the first page, etc.

And there Keith explains why total homozygosity can never be reached. He offers a reason why and to that I'd add that some genes are linked so very hard to seperate during genetic segregation.

I hope the link below will be helpful.

His whole site is a treasure house of tomato information and here's the link to the Home page.

http://www.kdcomm.net/~tomato/

Carolyn, who has dehybridized a known F1, Ramapo, as well as an accidental cross thatl led to the variety OTV Brandywine,

Here is a link that might be useful: Crosses. segregation and more