Quote:
Originally Posted by KarenO
For known stable varieties, Older seed has had less opportunity to be accodentally crossed. Certainly growing conditions, collection timing and techniques differ from person to person.
What I do know is I have not seen an accidental cross in seed I personally have saved but I have seen quite a few in traded seeds but I don't worry about it much. I eat the tomatoes which are generally good but I do not save any seed from those plants that do not grow out to match the expected form including plant habit. I think most suddenly different tomatoes are from crossed (or mixed up) seeds with only fairly unusual mutations making up the remainder.
I would not send out seed labelled as a known variety unless that tomato grew true to form.
KarenO
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Karen we agree on the traded seed issue for sure, and not sending out seeds that are not true to form.And that's one reason in my seed offers in the past I've put up a germination thread, so that if a variety shows up RL and not PL,it's known to be wrong.I also ask folks to not share seeds with others until they know the variety is correct and that's why I ask for a Fall feedback report. Many of the seeds offered in my seed offers my seed producers did,but also seeds from others already processed and ready to go.
About mutations or crossed seeds that any of us save personally.
I had joined SSE as a listed member in 1989 and was so until two years ago when I asked that all my listings be deleted,my choice For many years I was listing many hundreds of varieties, and growing the plants at the old farm, for primarily seed production and also selling plants and fruits locally.
All that I grew at the farm I did all the seed saving, and yes, there were a few wrong varieties,I kept track and in all those years it was mainly seed DNA mutations where pink (clear epi)would go to red (yellow epi) and for many years I kept the two colors going but never sent out seeds for anything other than original
I had sent seeds to Glenn at Sandhill and one was supposed to be red, but what he got was pink, and he listed it. Again, a spontaneous seed DNA mutation.
I don't yet have my SSE Yearbook, but several of my long time SSE friends do, so I ask them to look up stuff for me and they do.Back then, folks would report back to the person they got the seeds from, but I haven't heard of that happening lately.
What bothers me the most is that they tell me that there's no chain of command any more, as in which hands had the seeds passed through to the current person listing it. As in A got seeds in X year from B, who got seeds from C in X year for,etc. That way if the seeds were wrong it could be traced back.
Right now there is no one at SSE who kn ows much of anything about tomatoes,which is the largest listingin the YEarbook, sad to say, and noting that Torgrimson is leaving and I'm told they are looking for someone with a business /advertising background.
So much for the original mission of Kent and Diane who started the mission back in 1975,rather, it looks like to me its going to become a seed company,and I'm not talking about the Public catalog either.
Last year there were about 700 listed members and for this year only about 400, as I'm told by those who already have their 2017 Yearbooks,and that's a huge drop.
So for me with my own saved seeds, less than 10 over all those years,and most epi changes from seed DNA mutations,but a few somatic mutations as well,which were always welcome surprises.
Carolyn