[R66VEY]

Ive got a massive tin of home saved sweet corn seed but will it grow as good kobs ??

[babe]

have you just stolen that from your chickens??

[gobs]

Likely, it won't grow true, but chances, it grows good. Treat it as an experiment and sow some bought seed, too.

If it does come good, bingo, you have your own strain.

[Sally A]

Named sweetcorn varieties tend to be F1, I wouldn't risk it, you might end up with cattle feed.

[DD.]

Named sweetcorn varieties tend to be F1, I wouldn't risk it, you might end up with cattle feed.

I agree with Sally A, sooner spend a couple of quid than invite the cows to the plot, although the by-product may be useful!

[gobs]

Can I just make a note here, that the fact, the F1 seed does not come true gets commonly misunderstood that it will be necessarily rubbish.

Does not come true means simply, it won't be identical to parent. Can be rubbish, can be not.

[Cynara]

Does not come true means simply, it won't be identical to parent. Can be rubbish, can be not.

True. 50% will still be the same as the F1

[Sally A]

But I wouldn't want to run the risk of cross pollination between the good and the bad.

Some of the tendersweet or supersweet varieties might play up.

[gobs]

But I wouldn't want to run the risk of cross pollination between the good and the bad.

Some of the tendersweet or supersweet varieties might play up.

You are not supposed to plant those together for a start, Sally. If that happened you did not get any notable for eating corn, so you would have not saved your seeds.  Being sane, that is.

But open pollinated seed is also available if anyone so fancies.

[Sally A]

To be safe I just stick with one variety.  A lot of the tendersweet/supersweets now state in the seed catalogues that they will not cross pollinate, but who knows from saved seed.

[gobs]

It does not effect the statement about F1 seed though.

Sweetcorn is a bit special for cross-pollination as wind pollinated crop and varieties, but it should not be confused with the message on F1 seed as such.

[David.]

I saved/grew/saved again sweetcorn seeds for about 10 years (before the saved seeds ran out of steam), so long that that I can only recall one word on the original packet "supersweet". My saved seeds also germinated better than bought seeds.

I'm now going back to seeds saved from several years ago (kept just in case something went wrong with later saved seed) to try and restore the strain I was growing and saving.