Category: Seed Saving

There are two ways the genetics of the plants in your garden can change, with sports or crosses.

Sports

A sport is a chance genetic variation. Søren recently came across a sport in some seeds I sent him. Sports can be good or bad. Many very interesting plant varieties are the result of sports. Plants that result from a sport are still genetically stable, and preserving the new trait is as simple as saving seeds from it. It may take a few generations of selective seed saving before the sport itself becomes a stable trait.

Plants that are inbreeding or don’t develop true seeds which have resulted from pollination (like garlic), depend entirely on sports for genetic evolution. For this reason, many of these plants are more genetically prone to sports.

Crosses

Crosses can be accidental or intentional.

Crosses are when two genetically compatible plants of different varieties exchange pollen with one another, resulting in an F1 hybrid. F1 hybrids are distinct in the first generation, but genetically unstable in future generations. In this case the resulting plant has 50% of it’s genes from each parent plant. Accidental crosses are often obvious in the garden, especially when it involves 2 very distinct parent plants. When growing 2 similar varieties next to each other, a cross may not be immediately obvious and this is something to consider when selecting varieties to be grown in close proximity.

Gregor Mendel is credited for being the first to document what happens when plants cross, and the consequences of dominant and recessive traits. A while ago, I wrote a post about this.

In order to create a new, genetically stable, variety from an F1 hybrid you must go through a process called dehybridization. This is an obvious candidate topic for a future post.

This is where seed saving can become very difficult. Like the seed saving posts from the last few days, I’m going to focus here on the simplest aspects of out-breeding plants. Let’s also be very clear here, I have about 5 years experience with seed saving. For some people that may make it seem like I am an expert, but many people spend their whole lives working in this field and are still learning new things. In fact anyone who tells you they don’t have anything new to learn about seed saving is probably lying to you. Even well known published books on the subject come out with new editions and changed information, as opinions change and new information is uncovered.

Think of this post as something to get you started thinking on this subject, not a how-to guide! Also remember everything I say here is a guideline, not a rule. The great thing about seed saving is you can do whatever you want! Your plants belong to you, and the whole point is that you should be growing the plants you want to. If ignoring something I or anyone else says on this subject means you grow something more interesting, it’s a good thing. There is also nothing lost by experimenting. Just be sure to be honest with anyone you share your seeds with about what they should expect!

Be sure to start with the right kind of seeds!

New Page

Because there are now many people reading this blog, with many different backgrounds and skill levels on this subject, I’ve created a new Common Terms page that appears on the front of this blog. This page has some definitions for common terms and concepts related to seed saving and plant breeding, and I’ll be regularly adding new things to it. As an alternative to explaining these concepts every time I post about them, I will link to this page instead.

Good Books on the Subject

If you want to read more and probably more accurate information on this subject, these are two good books:

Carol Deppe’s Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener’s & Farmer’s Guide to Plant Breeding & Seed Saving

Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners

The Issues

There are three main issues with out-breeding plants, inbreeding depression, rouging and cross-pollination.

To avoid inbreeding depression you need to save seeds from enough different plants of the same variety at the same time.

To avoid unwanted traits from entering your plants genepool you need to rouge out or remove plants with these traits.

In order to avoid unwanted crosses in your garden, you need to make sure your plants are isolated from other genetically compatible plants.

At the Simplest Level

If you have an out-breeding plant you want to save seeds from, just take into account these three issues and nothing more is required.

The number of plants needed to avoid inbreeding depression varies, but is generally between 5-200. Obviously more is better, but 10-20 is a reasonable number for most plants. If you can manage 200 plants, you are virtually assured to avoid the problem. In any case, problems with inbreeding depression will not show up for a few years, so you are very likely to end up with at least a few generations of plants regardless of how many plants you manage to save seeds from. If you know your genepool is limited, and inbreeding depression in future generations is likely, don’t share your seeds without warning the next person!

Be sure to rouge out plants that bolt early, are stunted or in any other way deficient. When considering inbreeding depression, and how many plants you will need to avoid this, remember to plant some extras so some can be rouged out and you will still end up with enough plants.

You don’t need to worry about very unrelated plants crossing, for example a cucumber will not cross with a watermelon, but otherwise make sure there are no similar plants blooming anywhere in the area at the same time yours are.

That’s it!

Some out-breeding annuals to try in this way are pumpkins and squashes, cucumbers, some herbs like basil, sunflowers, fava (broad) beans, lima (butter) beans, melons and spinach.

To avoid vitality problems with the seeds, be sure not to eat from the same plants you save seeds from. The plants should put all of their energy into the seeds.

Where Does it Get Difficult?

The problem is most people want to save seeds from more than one variety at a time, or cannot be sure their garden is properly isolated from other genetically compatible plants. Also, determining exactly what is genetically compatible or the true isolation distance required can be very difficult, and often requires some trial and error. In cases where sufficient isolation distances can’t be maintained, you need to use techniques like caging, bagging or hand pollination. Rouging can also be more difficult for example if assessing a plant for deficiencies involves a root crop buried in the ground, or a vegetable that forms after cross pollination takes place.

Biennials can also be considerably more work than annuals. Among the issues to be dealt with, they go to seed their second growing year requiring more time and space in the garden and often need special care to survive the winter in colder climates. Biennials also often require larger genepools to avoid inbreeding depression.

Perhaps in some future posts I will address some of these issues, and discuss seed saving from specific plants.

When you are thinking about saving your own garden seeds, don’t forget that many plants reproduce asexually. In this case you won’t get any seeds, and there is no risk of cross pollination or inbreeding depression.

Propagation With Cuttings

Tomato plants are one of the most common garden plants that can propagated with cuttings. Normally cutting a small branch off of a tomato plant and placing it in purchased cutting medium or sometimes just dirt, potting soil or compost will work.

Not all plants will reproduce this way, and some require rooting hormone or other special treatment.

Bare Bones Gardener recently did a post on this subject.

Tubers

Potatoes are probably the best known example of this. After you grow a round of potatoes, by saving some of the smaller tubers for replanting you can keep regrowing the same variety.

Jerusalem Artichokes are another good example of this, although many people regret growing these because the tubers are difficult to remove completely from the ground and quickly turn into weeds.

On the more exotic side, I have been growing the Añu Plant and Søren has been growing the Yacon plant, both from the Andes mountains in South America. Emma from Fluffius Muppetus sent me some Chufa nut tubers, that I hope to try this spring.

Topsets and Root Divisions

Many onion and garlic related plants reproduce this way. Of course many of my readers already know I grow a lot of garlic, and this is done with root divisions. The garlic bulbs are the roots of the plants, and by planting the individual cloves you get more plants. Garlic also sometimes forms topsets, which are called bulbils.

I grow a number of perennial onions. Shallots multiply with root divisions, and topsetting onions form topsets.

Okay, you’ve decided you’re interested in saving your own vegetable seeds, but what’s the first step? Here are some suggestions.

Seed saving topics range from very simple to very complex. Some people with PhD’s write on seed saving topics. This post is intentionally going to focus on the very simplest aspects of seed saving.

First and foremost you must have the right seeds! I posted about this a few days ago. Not only are hybrid seeds genetically unstable, but they are ‘unknown quantities’ in your garden. Seed companies generally keep the parent plant varieties a secret, and often the genetics of the parent plants are not useful to have in your garden anyway. This unknown genetic material can be a real problem if it unknowingly cross pollinates with other plants in your garden. There are times you want F1 hybrid plants in your garden when seed saving or breeding your own plants, but those that come from commercial sources are most often not desirable. In any case, when you are first starting with seed saving, be sure not to confuse the matter with commercial F1 hybrid seeds.

Inbreeding Annuals

Okay, let’s talk about what ‘Inbreeding Annuals’ means.

There are two breeding characteristics, inbreeding and out-breeding. Inbreeding means a plant has flowers that pollinate themselves. Out-breeding means the plant develops flowers that must give and receive pollen to and from other plants. There are very few cases of 100% pure inbreeding or out-breeding plants, so generally what’s considered is if a plant is mostly one or the other.

There are three types of plants; annuals, biennials and perennials. These have a 1-year, 2-year and unending life cycles respectively. At the end of the first year, annuals will go to seed and die. Biennials will go to seed and die after the second year. Perennials generally go to seed each year and continue to grow. Most vegetables are either annual or biennial, but there are some perennials too.

Inbreeding plants are the easiest to save seeds from both because they don’t easily cross-pollinate with their neighboring plants (and so different varieties can be grown in close proximity), and also because they are genetically evolved not to be susceptible to ‘inbreeding depression’.

Inbreeding depression occurs when the size of a particular plant’s gene-pool gets too small. Think of this in terms of human children who are born as a result of incest, they develop birth defects and other gene related health problems. The same thing can happen with plants, and all plants need a certain ‘breadth’ to their gene-pool. Plants that are naturally inbreeding plants have a much higher resistance to these problems then their out-breeding counterparts.

In plain-speak what all this means is you can simply grow this type of plant, even several different varieties next to each other, save the seeds, and not worry about any of the ‘usual’ seed saving issues.

Keep in mind that because no plant is 100% inbreeding, it is possible to have issues with cross-pollination and inbreeding depression. As a matter of pursuing ‘best practice’ gardening, try to maintain a little space between different varieties of the same kinds of plants if you can. Also try to save seeds from a few different plants, to help maintain gene-pool breadth and prevent inbreeding depression. Like almost all other aspects of gardening, there are few absolute rules with seed saving, only guidelines, and it’s always best to avoid problems when you can.

If two plants cross-pollinate, after the seeds which are produced from this crossing are planted and grown, the resulting plant will have 50% of it’s genes from each parent plant. In this way crosses are usually easy to notice, and it’s important to watch out for them and not accidentally save seeds from these plants. It’s always fine to eat these plants! If you are interested in experimenting, it’s also okay to save seeds from these plants for replanting.

The other thing to consider for best practice gardening, is always save seeds from the best looking and highest quality plants! This is very important. There are always small genetic variations between plants, and if you save seeds from the best plants you will preserve those genetic traits. If you save seeds from the worst plants, you will also preserve those traits! Sometimes it’s hard to grow something all year long, only to have to eat the worst ones and save the best ones for seed saving, but it’s one of those things you get used to and you will be rewarded in the long run with genetically superior plants.

As a rule, don’t eat from and save seeds from the same plant. Many plants will die after they have successfully produced seeds. For example, common beans and pea plants both do this. If you eat from these plants first, then let them produce more seeds and die, the resulting saved seeds will be much weaker than if you hadn’t eaten from the plant first.

What are the Inbreeding Annuals?

Tomatoes: This is reportedly the most common plant in the home garden, and it’s very easy to save seeds from a tomato. When purchased, tomato seed is almost always very pure. When you save your own seed, since tomatoes are not 100% inbreeding, expect about 2-5% of your saved seeds will cross. This isn’t a bad thing. You can grow some interesting tomatoes this way! Any crosses will be F1 hybrids and will not be genetically stable, but are fine to eat! I wrote an earlier post explaining how to save tomato seeds. In this case it’s okay to eat and save seeds from the same plant, but make sure to save seeds from the first round of tomatoes if possible.

Peas and Ordinary Beans: By ordinary beans I mean what Americans would call bush or pole beans and Brits would call French or dwarf French beans. Fava (broad) and lima (butter) beans are both out-breeding plants, as are runner beans. For seed saving, just wait for the plants dry out and save the seeds. What you might normally eat is the same as what you plant as seeds. These are not 100% inbreeding plants, so try to maintain some space between varieties and expect to see some crosses. Cross-pollination seems to be a regional issue, as people in the US tend to report less crossing than for example people in Europe. Crossing is probably at least in part dependent on local insect populations. Crosses can be easier to notice if you don’t plant similar looking varieties next to each other, and be sure to isolate or discard seeds from plants that have crossed so they don’t get mixed in with the next year’s planting by accident.

Eggplants (Aubergines): Søren recently made a great post showing how to save seeds from these plants.

Peppers: You can save seeds from both hot and sweet peppers. Just let the peppers fully mature on the plant and start to rot, then lay the seeds out on a piece of paper to dry. Seeds from hot peppers can be very difficult to save, because the hot oils in them can burn your eyes, skin and nose. Be sure to take the proper precautions for this (and wear rubber gloves!).

Lettuce: Simply let the plant bolt and go to seed, then collect the seeds. The seeds have dandelion like ‘parachutes’, so be sure to collect them before they blow away.