[bower]

Originally Posted by frogsleap farm

I'm afraid this trend of marketing unfinished lines will undermine credibility of what I believe may become a robust and interesting collection of small seed companies focusing on the tomato home gardner niche. We can/should do as good a job on product/seed quality as the big boys.

Well, I can't pretend to have seen all the promotional material being discussed here, but I don't think there is really any risk of undermining the extraordinary products which are coming from serious breeders like yourself.

I had a look at this page, and it seems to me that the 'unfinished lines' are being marketed to a different market segment, not the gourmet market which you serious breeders are catering to. This seed seller is clearly targeting a 'sentimentality' niche market ("my own tomato"), as well as selling the experience of selection in a very scaled down way, to home gardeners who are not breeders but want a small taste of that experience. If the results are 'genetically unstable crap' as is anticipated, well that is the kind of taste of the experience that they'll get. I would expect that experience to foster a deeper awareness and appreciation for the work that goes into the awesome, stable lines that are being produced by professionals like yourselves, and ultimately benefit your business.

For the smaller percentage of customers that actually continue the growout to stabilize and name their own variety, yes, it may result in circulation of some mediocre named varieties that only a mother could love, but I doubt that many will end up on the market. If so, I wouldn't expect them to last long in the face of competition with really excellent varieties that have been produced and stabilized with due care.

Yes, we could end up with some very similar (or the same) varieties which have unique names. As long as the parentage is acknowledged, their sibling status will be obvious enough. From a genetic diversity perspective, that is really not a bad thing for the ol tomato genome. Subtle traits, such as tolerance of the different pest/disease profile or climate/soil conditions in specific locations, may end up represented in the 'sibling seed' bank as a result, which would be excluded when the same cross is fully stabilized for optimal performance in one breeder's location. So there is a possible up side to the development of this 'amateur breeder' market.

Sorry to play devil's advocate, but I'm not convinced that this is a bad thing (in itself) but, like most things, it can certainly be negative if there is misrepresentation involved.