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  • From: Charles Paradise <machelp@attglobal.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Hybrid vs OP vigor
  • Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:41:58 -0500

Perhaps this is complicating the discussion somewhat...or simplifying
it...but I thought the seed-saving movement was about getting rare strains
into several hands for maintenance year to year and decade to decade. [for
example in the 1980's I grew Mohawk "Round-Nose" corn... A fascinating corn
yielding occasional cobs with kernels growing right down to the end of the
ear and right onto the end, hence the round-nose name...but 4 out of 5 stalks
yielded undersize ears, the strain was not pure. I didn't have the room to
purify the strain nor the ready know-how and suspected then also it would
benefit by hybridizing with another different strain of corn to achieve a
hefty crop yield.

I have been told that hybrid vigor is proven by statistical numbers, even
though there are OP strains with vigor. And I've been told that hybridizing,
or producing packets of hybrid seed, is labor-intensive. Hence a packet of
seed I purchased at K-Mart said the tomato seed was Product of India.

So what are the choices?
1] Expend the labor yourself to make your own hybrid seed by growing two
inbred OP strains
2] send your two OP strains to a country where labor is inexpensive, and pay
to have hybrid seed produced custom.
3] wait for diversified sources of hybrid seed to appear in markets worldwide
and purchase more directly [as, through the internet] and cut the crushing
power of the seed companies.

Personally, I would get upset to learn of the unavailability of only one or
two hybrid seeds from catalogs. Looking at the purchasing of seed sources by
conglomerates, this is a little like the scare that happened when in the
1960's little breweries disappeared and the Schlitz and Budweiser beers ruled
the marketplace. Then it all changed and now there are if anything too many
small breweries. I do understand this is a different issue if talking about
soybeans where they are genetically modifying the soys to be "roundup-ready"
compelling many growers to grow varieties tied into a specific herbicide.
What I am discussing rather is truck-garden vegetable and fruit varieties.

Oh I wish I had more room to grow this stuff.
Charlie Paradise
Massachusetts

road's end farm wrote:

> On Jan 26, 2005, at 7:29 AM, fuwa fuwa usagi wrote:
>
>> My experience has been that "hybrid vigor" is not a myth.  I believe
>> the original poster indicated this is a commercial venture and I thought
>> he mentioned this pepper was a hybrid.  Therefore it "may" be impractical
>> to attempt to OP the hybrid.   Years back I stabalized several Tomatoe
>> varieties, and while they gave me the results I wanted on a personal level
>> I did not  agreat loss in vigor.
>
>
> It's not a myth; but there are many varieties of open-pollinated peppers
> and tomatoes that do have good vigor. Some hybrid varietes seem to be
> harder to develop a good OP from than others. I've had some success so far
> with Orobelle (gold ripening sweet bell pepper), though not ready to put it
> out except for trial.
>
> --Rivka
> Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly






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