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travis · August 22, 2009

1. If I plant F1 seeds, will the seeds from the resultant PODS be viable, or do I have to buy more seed?

You apparently are speaking of peppers here. Yes they will be viable if by that you mean that saved F2 seeds from your F1 hybrid plant will sprout and grow pepper plants. But the F2 plants from those seeds may not yield the same peppers as the F1 seeds did the first year. Some of the F2 plants may yield closely similar peppers and other F2 plants will yield significantly different pepper pods. Of course, the variability of the pods on the various F2 plants is dependent on the variability of the genes contributed by the two original parents to the F1 hybrid.

If you were speaking of tomatoes rather than peppers, there would be some more comments I could make. For example, and speaking more of modern hybrids, some breeders use for the seed bearing - or pollen receiving - parent of a modern hybrid a male sterile breeding line so that they don't have to emasculate the blossoms prior to applying the pollen to the female part of the flower. This saves a huge amount of labor as you can imagine. But the resulting F1 hybrid seed carries the recessive gene for male sterility and a percentage of the F2 plants grown from seeds saved out of the F1 hybrid tomato will bear no fruit in the second generation. You can even get an F2 plant that will bear fruit but carries the recessive male sterility gene forward and expresses the non-fruiting trait in the F3 generation. So, there is a case for you where the F2 seeds saved from an F1 hybrid may not be viable in that they will sprout and grow but not bear fruit.

Also, disease resistances in F1 hybrid peppers and tomatoes often are recessive traits while color and shape characterisitics are dominant traits. In the F2 generation you may lose disease resistance and a different color and shape may pop up. So if by viable you also mean replicating the F1 characteristics, then no and there is a high likelihood with modern hybrid peppers and tomatoes that the F2 seeds will not replicate the F1 hybrid.

Bottom line, if you want pepper plants or tomato plants whose growth habits, plant appearance, fruit appearance, disease resistances, etc. are identical to the F1 hybrid, yes you have to purchase the F1 hybrid seeds repeatedly.

August 22, 2009	#4
travis Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Evansville, IN Posts: 2,984	1. If I plant F1 seeds, will the seeds from the resultant PODS be viable, or do I have to buy more seed? You apparently are speaking of peppers here. Yes they will be viable if by that you mean that saved F2 seeds from your F1 hybrid plant will sprout and grow pepper plants. But the F2 plants from those seeds may not yield the same peppers as the F1 seeds did the first year. Some of the F2 plants may yield closely similar peppers and other F2 plants will yield significantly different pepper pods. Of course, the variability of the pods on the various F2 plants is dependent on the variability of the genes contributed by the two original parents to the F1 hybrid. If you were speaking of tomatoes rather than peppers, there would be some more comments I could make. For example, and speaking more of modern hybrids, some breeders use for the seed bearing - or pollen receiving - parent of a modern hybrid a male sterile breeding line so that they don't have to emasculate the blossoms prior to applying the pollen to the female part of the flower. This saves a huge amount of labor as you can imagine. But the resulting F1 hybrid seed carries the recessive gene for male sterility and a percentage of the F2 plants grown from seeds saved out of the F1 hybrid tomato will bear no fruit in the second generation. You can even get an F2 plant that will bear fruit but carries the recessive male sterility gene forward and expresses the non-fruiting trait in the F3 generation. So, there is a case for you where the F2 seeds saved from an F1 hybrid may not be viable in that they will sprout and grow but not bear fruit. Also, disease resistances in F1 hybrid peppers and tomatoes often are recessive traits while color and shape characterisitics are dominant traits. In the F2 generation you may lose disease resistance and a different color and shape may pop up. So if by viable you also mean replicating the F1 characteristics, then no and there is a high likelihood with modern hybrid peppers and tomatoes that the F2 seeds will not replicate the F1 hybrid. Bottom line, if you want pepper plants or tomato plants whose growth habits, plant appearance, fruit appearance, disease resistances, etc. are identical to the F1 hybrid, yes you have to purchase the F1 hybrid seeds repeatedly.