Growing several Heirlooms - Saving Seeds will I get hybrids?

I am growing half a dozen different heirlooms - brandywines, cherokee purple (my fave ever!) that I remembered to mark and some others. I'm saving seeds - but - will I get the same tomato next year or a cross between the tomatoes?

the only way you may get a cross is if you have all of the different plants very close together, where the pollen can mix around with each other. Otherwise, heirlooms will always come back the same way from seed every time....many heirloom varieties that we have today have been passed on through generation after generation--thus the name. I myself grew green german, yellow pear, and black krim this year, along with a Better Boy plant that i bought pre grown from the garden shop. My moms brother shared some seed from his German Johnson Pink that i cant wait to give a go at next year. :)

This message was edited Sep 13, 2013 11:09 AM

Saved seed from non-hybrid varieties does come true unless there's been a mutation, rare, or Cross pollination with another variety.

Most of the time the blossoms of open pollinated(OP) varieties self pollenize and so the seeds should be true, but not always.

If for home use only, you probably don't need ALL true seeds but for seed trading, listing in the SSE YEarbooks, etc., it's best to bag blossoms. Insect pollinators for tomatoes are known to fly at least a mile or two, so X pollination is not just from plants that are too close

My crossing rate where I live is about 5% which means that on average, 5/100 varieties I save seed from will be X pollinated,, but there are many variables involved and folks in different parts of the country can have different rates.

Carolyn