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Me · 22-05-2008, 11:21 AM posted to alt.permaculture

In article ehrebeniuk-44A8F7.21041221052008@news,
says...
In article ,
hyperspacechase wrote:

Maybe I don't know enough about hybrid seeds but saving seeds from F1
hybrid plants (in my case sweetcorn and broccoli) and sowing them the
following year had disasterous results. Surely this means that the
seeds are "tampered with" yet some are considered organic. I am
confused.

An F1 hybrid, AFAIK, is just a cross that produces offspring whose progeny is
either unviable or not-true-to-type (eg, mating a horse and donkey produces a
mule, but a mule won't produce little mules because it is sterile). F1
hybrids have improved characteristics, but you have to repeat the cross to
reproduce the same hybrid. So yes, you can have an organically grown F1
hybrid, but you won't be able to propagate it from its own seed. This is part
of the normal kind of hybridisation that humans (and nature) have been doing
from time immemorial.

And which certain companies do in order to ensure they get a repeat
order for seeds every year. "Farmers growing their own seed? Ye Gods,
we'd go out of business!"

Cutting and splicing completely unrelated and unbreedable (my neologism for
today!) genes produces a GMO.