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David Hare-Scott[_2_] · 08-09-2010, 12:16 AM posted to rec.gardens

wrote:
(EVP MAN) wrote:

The hybrids looked better, tasted better and produced much better.
Say what you want about heirlooms but I won't give them garden space
again.
Hybrids all the way for this PA gardener from now on!
LOL! I expressed precisely the same viewpoint very much earlier this
year. Early on, I composted all of my "Brandywine" except one and,
based on yield, keeping _it_ was a waste of good dirt. As I see it,
entertaining this, that, or the-other "heirloom" is foisting upon
oneself all of the reasons reliable hybrids were developed in the
first place. Who needs it? But then, again, I am neither tomato
connoisseur nor among the "heirloom" cognoscenti, I suppose.
Sentiment or some irrational "doomsday" fear are not among the
reasons that I grow vegetables.

It's always good when someone finds a cultivar that suits their taste and
growing conditions. I would never suggest that people should persist with
growing things that don't suit them - that's what it is all about getting
fresh produce that you enjoy. And there are some cases where over time many
people have found that hybrids are superior to open pollinated varieties,
for example sweet corn.

There are a few things to consider though:

- Many people have had the reverse experience, open pollinated tomatoes
tasted better to them than hybrids. It is hard to do representative tests
on your own, as I said to you before, growing one heirloom in one season in
one location doesn't say anything about all the others. There has been at
least one large systematic tastings and testing of tomatoes that concluded
that overall heirlooms tasted and yielded better (Diggers Club, Victoria).

- If you stick to hybrids you cannot usefully keep the seed for yourself or
swap with neighbours and your choice of cultivars will be restricted. You
must go back to the supplier every year and pay what they ask, and in the
case of tomatoes you will be limited to a small fraction of the cultivars
available. One reason there are so many cultivars is that people kept
breeding and selecting until they got one that suited them in their
conditions. That is impossible with F1s.

- I have a small problem with big business controlling food production. I
know it is the only way it can be done for now and feed enough people but it
isn't the only way or the only way for ever. I have a big problem with big
business controlling the means of food production, which is what you get
with GM crops and F1 hybrid seeds.

I find it odd that you post from a country that prides itself on
individualism and has half the population rabidly wanting to reduce controls
on the individual (by government) but you seem quite happy to hand your
lives over to big business who are not elected and only exist to make a
profit. To me keeping control of seeds, that humans have taken thousands
of years to breed, in the hands of the individual is just common sense.
That may be "doomsday fear" around your place (Atlanta?) but is it really
irrational?

David