Anyone growing their own hybrids?

[geol]

I know that there are some growers out there making their own crosses, looking to develop new OP varieties. I was curious if anyone does so with the end goal of producing your own F1 seed, and what are some of your favorite crosses?

[feldon30]

I would think that the folks creating a variety whose parents must be grown and subsequently crossed every year to get F1 seed would be few and far between outside of a seed company. The crosses mentioned here on TomatoVille are generally just the start of creating new stabilized O.P. varieties.

You might want to check out the Crosstalk subforum.

[nctomatoman]

Hybrids are the start of our dwarf project growouts, described in great detail in the R&D forum. Patrina found a winner when she crossed Green Giant with Golden Dwarf Champion - the resulting F1, which she named Sneezy, is a very nice medium sized delicious bright yellow tomato. Bruce also struck gold when he crossed New Big Dwarf with Carbon - the resulting hybrid (Sleazy A) is a huge, oblate, tasty pink tomato. We are primarily interested in the various dwarfs that we find in the F2 and beyond, but we were very pleased to experience those two fine new hybrids.

[sirtanon]

I have to agree.. Sleazy A is really a winner. Personally, I plan to grow both Carbon and NBD next season so I can make a bunch more Sleazy-A F1 seed

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by feldon30

I would think that the folks creating a variety whose parents must be grown and subsequently crossed every year to get F1 seed would be few and far between outside of a seed company. The crosses mentioned here on TomatoVille are generally just the start of creating new stabilized O.P. varieties.

You might want to check out the Crosstalk subforum.

Morgan, one doesn't have to cross parents when there are two, or even the last selection in two breeding lines as the professional hybridizers do, every year.

You just save all the F1 hybrid seed you can and it's good to go until it runs out or gets too old. But every year creation of F1 hybrid seed is not necessary at all.

Craig and I have/had a friend, Tad Smith, who loved to do crosses and create new varieties. The varieties Pale Perfect Purple and Snowstorm and Tad ( not available) are from him.

And he sent Craig and I F1 seeds from two crosses, Craig would remember their names, I don't, and I used those F1 seeds for quite a few years for plants.

I'd love to know where Tad is now. Last I knew he headed up the Late Blight project at Rohm Haas which is just outside of Philly. He has his Ph.D in the area and I remember that when I first met him online he was working in GA in the peanut fields and not liking it at all.

[feldon30]

I knew I'd regret saying "every year" because of course you can use the seed for up to 5 years before you really ought to re-stock by growing and crossing the parents again.

[geol]

Thanks for the replies; I know there must be many worthy crosses out there that are little talked about, due to lack of commercial interest.

Certainly many of the potential parents are already yearly “must grows” in a lot of our gardens, and might represent an overlooked resource that could easily be tapped.

Hoping some more of the few and far betweeners will chime in with more hidden gold.

[Tormato]

geol,

I'm growing someone else's F1 crosses. You can check the Crosstalk forum, under "Using Sungold F1...", for details.

Gary