questions about seeds

[rezdog]

i was wandering what the diffrance is between organic seeds and heirloom? is it just amount of generation or is organic diffanrent word for hypbred? one more question, if i use a hybred tomateos with heirlooms tomateos will it make a different hybred?

[Tofu]

Rezdog: Here are the things to look out for:

GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) or Genetically altered seed - This is the practice of altering seed so that its more resistant to things like Round-Up. Very scary stuff...

Hybrids - All GMO is a hybrid, not all hybrids are GMO. That means I have two apple trees (sweet delicious and granny smith for example) and the bees do what bees do the seed that each of those trees would have a bit of the parents. That is a sweet granny smith. About as natural as natural gets. Heriloom seeds are seeds that are grown in a way that once a sucessful type of tomato was grown and re-grown over several years those seeds were passed down. I have seeds that can trace their lineage back to the 1800's.

Providing a link to a guy that I think is right on with Survival Gardening.

Genetically Modified Organisms


Seed Saving and Seed Banks


Hope it helps.

[monkeybird]

http://www.southernexposure.com/

Some of your questions can be answered at the above web site. In order to save seeds for future planting you must use NON-HYBRID, HEIRLOOM/HERITAGE seeds. These are seeds which have been saved for generations and have not be genetically modified.

Hybrid plants usually will not produce food if you plant their seeds. Sometimes the absence of produce is in the 2nd generation.

[rezdog]

thanks for the info

[Tina]

Organic is not required

You want open pollinated for reliability/seed saving - will be stated on the pack/in the catalog, may be marked as op, if your looking at aplace that carries a lot of hybrids, sometimes the ones with no hybrid marking are the open pollinated even if not stated

heirloom - usually means it's been around for a long long time, as the previous post, sometimes back to the 1800's, not always the best, depends on your area

hybrid - you can save the seed and it will usually grow, but it will be a throw-back to one or both of the parent plants (not always a bad thing, but don't depend on it for a food source) labeled hybrid, F1, patented, etc.. I'm a seed freak - I'll plant anything just to see if they'll grow and see what I get : ) no good successes so far, but I keep trying...

GMO - will not reproduce, if they do, not good cause they may spread to unrelated plants and in my opinion is a LARGE factor of the honey bee decline