Do a little homework before you save seeds.

Byline: Paul Rogers 

COLUMN: ROOTS OF WISDOM

As tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn ripen in the garden, gardeners sometimes wonder if they can save their own seed for use next spring. Of course you can. However, seed saving can lead to disappointment rather than excitement. The factor that separates success from failure is knowledge. Plants present us with a bewildering variety of options. Let us look at a few.

For most vegetables, the fact that fruit is formed usually means that viable seed has formed within the tomato, melon, cucumber, pepper, or pumpkin. However, some tomatoes such as Big Boy, Early Girl and Jet Star have a complex heritage. Each is the end result of a series of carefully designed crosses between two parents. Each parent brings into the union certain valued characteristics. The plant breeder's objective was to "marry" the best of each parent into the hybrid.

When a cross is successful, the first filial generation (F-1 hybrid) has a unique genetic composition and usually exhibits hybrid vigor. Each F-1 seed from this controlled cross should produce a plant almost exactly like every other seed from the same controlled cross. However, seed saved from an F-1 plant can be expected to show characteristics from all previous generations. Thus, F-2 plants (second filial generation) plants are normally inferior to F-1 plants and not worth growing.

There are, however, named tomatoes such as Old German, Brandywine and Boxcar Willie that are not hybrids but rather the result of saved seed of a particular plant over many years. Often referred to as "line selection," the best, most characteristic fruits have been saved and their seed used for gardening the following year. There are many hundreds of selected tomatoes, peppers and eggplants that breed true. It is up to the gardener to know which plants they are growing are F-1 hybrids and which are not. Catalog lists will usually make the point when a plant is an F-1 hybrid.

It is also important to know whether a plant is self-fertile or if it needs to be cross-pollinated with another if it is to produce fruit and seed. Note that tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and other members of that same family are all self-pollinating, they fertilize themselves. Melons, cucumbers, squash, gourds and similar vine crops must be cross-pollinated. Each blossom is either male or female. A bee or other insect must visit a male flower that contains viable pollen, pick up some, and transfer it to a receptive stigma (female element) on a female flower.

There are advantages and disadvantages for the plant inherent in each method.

Corn plants present a different set of challenges as they depend on wind to transport pollen from the top of the plant to the silk of each ear. The uncertainty of wind pollination is the reason that corn is grouped in blocks rather than set out in single rows.

All that has been stated about these few vegetables is seen in the annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs in your yard. The walnuts and other nut trees are wind-pollinated like corn. The apples, cherries, peaches and other fruit trees depend on the bees just like the cukes. Learn your plants. Save some seed. Enjoy.