On Thu, 1 May 2003 09:57:46 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:



That's OK. The required genetic material will still be there, and if a seed
producer can produce seed for a given cultivar with specified properties, so
can I. It is just a matter of study, breeding and patience. I expect to
begin breeding phalaenopsis orchids within the next year (depending on when
I can get suitable breeding stock), and so I expect I will see results from
breeding experiements with tomatos much earlier than I would with tomatos.
While one purpose of this is to supply our table with tomatos, another,
perhaps more important purpose, is to learn something. I am a scientist and
in order to maintain my sanity, I must be studying something.


If you start hybridizing plants, you'll have several
lifetimes worth of learning! You'll never run out of
something to study. Maybe you could even 'invent' a
superior new vegetable (such as sugar snap peas).

May I suggest a book called 'Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and
Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners' by Suzanne
Ashworth?

I haven't read this book myself yet, I'm having the library
get it for me on inter-library loan. If it's as useful as
people have said it is, I may buy it.

Amazon carries it, and has reviews and excerpts.

Pat

"Ted Byers" wrote in
:

While I have grown a variety of inedible plants (mostly orchids
indoors, but irises, lilies, and crocus outside), I am not familiar
with the culture of tomatoes.

Yesterday, I saw some yellow tomatoes and some orange ones, and I am
considering taking the seeds from one of each and trying to grow them.
If I do this, do the seeds need any particular treatment, or can they
be simply taken from the fruit and placed in the pots? I ask because
I have never seen seeds for yellow or orange tomatoes in any of the
garden centres around here. I know some species require cold
treatment and/or scarification in order to germinate. I just don't
know if tomatoes require such treatment.

I am not sure how much gardening to try this year since we've had a
really bizarre spring so far, with temperatures both well above normal
and well below normal and dramatic changes in temperature from one day
to the next: imagine temperatures typical of June on a Monday,
followed by snow on Tuesday. I have never seen a winter/early spring
with such variable weather. I don't want to be spending money putting
plants in only to see them die because they've had no time to get
established before being hit by strange weather.

Cheers,

Ted

BTW: I am located in zone 5, just to the north of Toronto.


If you look at the tomato seeds as they come out of the tomato, they have a
gel or clear gooey stuff around them. The trick is to put the seeds in
water for 3 days (tomatoes are the only thing you can do this with). At
the end of three days, throw away the floaters and spread the rest on a
papertowel to dry. Once dry, you can now put them in soil with bottom heat
and bottom water, and in 2 weeks or so they will germinate.

Of course, as previously stated hybrids will not breed true, although you
will have a tomato, just not exactly like the parent.

-Rj