[jondav]

The general concensus,especially among the seed companies,is that its no good saving F1 seeds as for some reason in the following seasons they dont come true to form,well about 6 years ago I bought a packet of F1 dwarf  french beans,canadian wonder ,I think,anyway I,ve saved seed from these every season since,and each year I,ve had a great crop,they,re just as strong and vigerous as when I bought them

[drmoonshine]

i dont see why saving seeds for the next year would make them not true  :blink:.........

it makes so sense if there kept properly......

for heaven sake why would they put 1000 seeds in my carrot packet..... do they really epect me to use 1000 seeds in a year?

its rubbish if you ask me

[gobs]

If you do not mind me saying, beans are commonly open pollinated, ie. not F1s and generally one of the easiest seeds to save.

[mumofstig]

If you Google you'll see that they are an heirloom variety, not f1.

This link is 1  from many

http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/item.php?id=1816C

So you were lucky with your choice in the first place, but the advice to not save seeds from f1 varieties is correct, they do not often breed true the next year

[SG6]

As the original F1 seed has been planted, grown pollinated and fruited to form a seed they can not be F1 still.

The action of pollination prevents them from being defined as F1.

They may still grow true to form or not, that aspect is immaterial.

It is a case of what an F1 seed is defined as.

In the case of the beans if they had altered from "true" by just 0.01% in their genetic code each year you wouldn't see a difference but they have altered and so cannot be F1.

F1 seeds can be guaranteed to have certain characteristics after that pollination forbids the guarantee, so not F1.

[drmoonshine]

o he ment save the seeds from the veg plant......  :blink:


and not save the left overs  


in that case. i can agree with whats being said..... BUT it depends on how stable the stain is if the seed breeder has done a good job it will be 99% stable and yes you should get a true one next year

[Yorkie]

i dont see why saving seeds for the next year would make them not true  :blink:.........

it makes so sense if there kept properly......

F1 seed is specifically bred from two parents the previous year in order to create certain consistent characteristics.

The following year(s), there is no way to control which characteristics have been passed on to the seed, therefore the seeds may not come true.

How you keep the seed once collected is completely irrelevant in F1 varieties; the die is cast as soon as the plant was pollinated.

Neither is it anything to do with the 'stability' of the seed. 

[jondav]

As far as im concerned, the proof is in the final crop ,if you are growing for showing,then perhaps you might feel F1,s are worth it,what I take issue with is the hype put out by seed companies of bigger better produce if you pay double or treble for a small amount seeds,marketing cons are just as prevelant in the horticultural world as elsewhere.

[mumofstig]

there is always 'hype' when there is selling involved, it is up to you whether you buy or not.

the pros and cons have been discussed before

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=68153.msg780237#msg780237

[drmoonshine]

i dont see why saving seeds for the next year would make them not true  :blink:.........

it makes so sense if there kept properly......

F1 seed is specifically bred from two parents the previous year in order to create certain consistent characteristics.

The following year(s), there is no way to control which characteristics have been passed on to the seed, therefore the seeds may not come true.

How you keep the seed once collected is completely irrelevant in F1 varieties; the die is cast as soon as the plant was pollinated.

Neither is it anything to do with the 'stability' of the seed. 

miss read the opening post as you know so first quote was not needed

and i think it has got everything to do with how stable it is if the strain is very stable then your going to get near as possible to what the true F1 was ok ill give you there maybe 0.001% of a change that your never going to notice but it will still be true enough for me to even worry about my F1 not being F1 anymore

on the other hand if its not stable at all and you keep seeds from last years harvest and there is a 50% change more often then not your going to see this 50% change. so big a change your not going to be happy calling it an F1

[Salmo]

Canadian Wonder is, as has been said, a heritage variety going back to 1870's and is definately not F1. After 100+ years it ought to breed true.

This post seems to have turned into an F1 discussion so I will add my pennyworth.

Most F1 varieties are bred for large scale commercial growing and are usually very uniform in size, shape, time of ripening etc which is ideal if you are supplying supermarkets.

Seed breeders spend a lot of money and effort producing F1 seed. They will trial thousands of combinations and select the characteristics they want. An F1 seed is not just one variety crossed with another. Each parent may be a series of selected crosses which eventually bring all the desired characters into one plant. The plants that are saved from F! seeds may be like any of the parents or the plants used to breed them. Some may be no use as vegetables but may have been introduced for something like mildew resistance.

Good luck to the breeders who are able to patent their F1 varieties. Without that they would not spend money on researching new varieties and us small growers would not have all the wonderfull F1's.

Adittedly the flavour of some of the old varieties is better but there is often a penalty to be paid by way of disease or unruly growth habit.

[DD.]

As far as im concerned, the proof is in the final crop ,if you are growing for showing,then perhaps you might feel F1,s are worth it,what I take issue with is the hype put out by seed companies of bigger better produce if you pay double or treble for a small amount seeds,marketing cons are just as prevelant in the horticultural world as elsewhere.

How would you now word your first post, which you seem to have neatly forgotten, seeing at it was based on a totally false premise?

The general concensus,especially among the seed companies,is that its no good saving F1 seeds as for some reason in the following seasons they dont come true to form,well about 6 years ago I bought a packet of F1 dwarf  french beans,canadian wonder ,I think,anyway I,ve saved seed from these every season since,and each year I,ve had a great crop,they,re just as strong and vigerous as when I bought them

[Kingstown_peter]

Saving F1 seeds.
If you take good quality F1 (first filial generation) seeds they will have come from 2 different parent types then simple Mendelian inheritance shows that the characteristics that make up the qualities of the F1 plants will only be passed on to a half of the F1's offspring.
Basically, if you have a tall plant with genes TT and a short with genes SS then all the offspring (the F1 seeds from the seed merchant) will be medium, with a gene mix TS.
If you breed from the F1 you will end up with offspring in a ratio of 1:2:1 ie one tall (TT) 2 meduim (TS) and 1 short (SS).
I hope this helps.
Regards, Peter