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.

In article ,
says...

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.

IIRC F1 varieties do not produce viable seeds. Try a non-F1 variety. For
swettcorn, try one of the "indian" varieties. The brown/purple kernals
may look strange, but they are just as tasty.

Oh, and if you want to experiment to find out how far GM pollen might
go, creep into a newly sprouted field of forage maize and plant *one*
indian corn seedling. Then see how many plants produce coloured kernals.

g'day,

they can be organic from my understanding as they are not a geneticaly
manipulated process, but they aren't heirloom seeds.

with F1 hybrids they are developed to produce, not reproduce so their
seeds might give you any sort of result if any result at all.

if you want to start seed collecting and growing from your own seeds
you need to begin with heirloom varities, they are open pollinated.

On Fri, 16 May 2008 11:44:03 +0100, hyperspacechase
wrote:
snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

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.

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

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

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.

In article ,
Me wrote:

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!"

Yes, but the F1 hybrid has to have outstanding characteristics to be worth
that. I assume that mules are more robust than horses and stronger than
donkeys (despite their notorious bad temper), so they keep being produced.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/