Homemade F1 hybrids

[zipcode]

Many people get accidental crosses and think they're so good that they continue to 'stabilize' it. Sometimes they can tell which was the second parent depending on characteristics and what was grown in the garden. Or you make a cross on purpose, and then proceed again to stabilize it.
My question is why not just grow F1s when you know the parents. If you get a great F1 tomato, it doesn't take much to have your own stock of seeds. Just make the cross on purpose again, save all the seeds from that tomato and you have enough F1 seed to last a few years.
Is anyone doing this? I will start doing it this year after another fantastic accidental cross. Here is mine: GalinaXCrnkovic, great all around smallish tomato (up to 2 oz), excels at almost everything.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by zipcode

Many people get accidental crosses and think they're so good that they continue to 'stabilize' it. Sometimes they can tell which was the second parent depending on characteristics and what was grown in the garden. Or you make a cross on purpose, and then proceed again to stabilize it.
My question is why not just grow F1s when you know the parents. If you get a great F1 tomato, it doesn't take much to have your own stock of seeds. Just make the cross on purpose again, save all the seeds from that tomato and you have enough F1 seed to last a few years.
Is anyone doing this? I will start doing it this year after another fantastic accidental cross. Here is mine: GalinaXCrnkovic, great all around smallish tomato (up to 2 oz), excels at almost everything.

The problem as I see it is that just crossing with two parents might not give you anything good.

Both Craig L and I knew someone named Dr. Tad Smith and Tad would create two different lines of what he wanted, and then crossed the last two in each line, and then send the F1's to both of us.

They were fantastic but when those F1's were gone, they were gone, as in RIP.

Tad was/is a most interesting person. He was from Franklin,NC, had a Ph.D in plant breeding, started out in the cotton fields of the of the hot humid south crawling on his knees in the red soil of the south , had enough of that and moved north.

He then moved to CA where last I knew he was a plant breeder.

Here's an interesting read on the subject.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussi...ssing-tomatoes

And here's more about Tad whose contributions allowed Craig L to name Lucky Cross, Little Lucky and so many more

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Lucky_Cross


Carolyn

[PaddyMc]

I make lots of crosses every year, some I persue, some I don't. All come from carefully chosen parents. The reason I don't generally just re-grow F1's again and again is that very rarely is the "best" that can come out of a cross. Most of the really interesting tomato genes are recessive. Commercial seed companies love F1's because they can make money selling you something you can't get anywhere else, but there's no downside to developing your own crosses to the point of stability.

[AKmark]

We have made a bunch of them, and usually get even better selections when we weed through the selections from F2 on down the line. You never know what combinations you may end up with unless you grow a bunch out, and besides that, IT IS FUN to tinker with all the possibilities.