What "comes true" from seed?

Ok, I know that most new hybrids cannot be grown from seed. If they aren't sterile, the seeds they do produce will not grow to look like the parent plant. I get the concept. So, for instance, I know I will only propagate my new orange coneflower from divisions. However, if I buy SEEDS, can I assume that the seeds from the plants I grow from these seeds will come true or not? If not, how can I tell? I mean, besides email Parks about everything I bought from them. Ha! :) I got the Dolce petunia collection (seeds) but I don't want to collect seeds from the plants just to find they won't work. I am also about to order the Black-Eyed Susan vine collection. I am pretty sure the orginal BES vine one will come true from seeds, but what about the other varieties in the collection? Any tips, rules of thumb, etc?

Thanks!

Jamie

I recommend this article: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/18505/109460
It is called: UNDERSTANDING HYBRIDS.

Let me also say this:

It does not matter if a plant is propagated from division or from seeds. This will not determine if the seeds harvested from the plant come true to type or not.

This is how it works.
In nature - over many years - plants have inbred. Take an orange ditch lily for example. It has been growing isolated in an area and the traits you see (shade tolerance, height, leaf color, flower color) has been inbred.

If you make divisions of the plant, you obviously get exact copies because what you are doing is cloning the plant.

If you pollinate two ditch lilies they will produce offspring which is VERY SIMILAR but not exactly as the parent. However, to you and me, they will still be the tall orange ditch lilies with light green foliage which grow great in partial shade and full sun. To the two of us, these lilies from "true from seed". The seeds harvested from these plants are SPECIES seeds. Not hybrid seeds.

Now fast-forward to a period where hybridizers (aka gardeners with way way too much time on their hands) have brought in new traits. They may have crossed (pollinated) the orange ditch lily with a yellow ditch lily from Korea and the offspring may be a CORAL lily. If the hybridizers are good, they may have refined this strain to the point where all the seeds they sell, produce CORAL lilies (F1 HYBRID seeds)

However, if you harvest the seeds from a CORAL lily (even seeds pollinated by another CORAL lily) you can not be sure to produce a CORAL lily. The offspring MAY be coral, but it could also be orange, yellow (like their parents) or other variegations which has come about. The reason for this uncertainty is that the genes are not so similar that you can predict the outcome.

In order for genes to become so similar that you can rule out any or most irregularities you need many generations. Nature has done this through ages in the production of what we call SPECIES seeds, but gardeners (hybridizers) have only done this for a number or even hundreds of plant generations... this is not enough to equalize the genes in the plants.

So, if you buy a hybrid plant and harvest the seeds, the seeds may not (will probably not) come true to type. If you buy a species seed and cross it with a similar species you will most likely get seeds which come true to type.

Ok, so back to your question: HOW DO YOU KNOW ??

The easy answer is: ASK Park...
Because there are so many hybrids on the market today that they are so common, it is almost impossible to assume that you get species seeds unless you ask. If the seeds say: species, heirloom, etc then you can be reasonably sure (although some gardeners sell seeds from plants their parents grew as "heirloom" which is not necessarily the same as species plants. It could be old hybrids).


Here is a link to an article: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/18505/109460

Thanks for the info! That really does help. Now I won't feel like a big dork when I keep asking about seeds. I did assume anything marked as "heirloom" is okay. And also anything really common. But when it says "new for 2005" or "first ever" then I don't feel so certain. Also, I may have not been clear. I do know that if I divide my coneflower, the seeds from the division plant won't come true from seed any more than they would from the original plant. I just meant that I may give/trade divisions but I won't be collecting seeds from it! It's when I order seeds that it confuses me. I mean, how do they know the seeds they sold me are going to turn out the way they describe if it's a crap shoot every time they do a "cross?"

Anyway, I am going to just email Parks and say I ordered this, that and the other. Do they come true from seed or not?! :) I did order a few heirloom seeds elsewhere and I will just assume they are going to be okay to collect seeds from.

Now I need to check out those links you posted...

Thanks again.

When you purchase seeds from a reputable company, it's not a crap shoot planting hybrid seeds, you should get a plant that matches the description. However, second generation seeds from the plant that you grew from hybrid seed may not grow true to type; that's just genetics. To over-simplify: They cross a plant with gene "A" with a plant with gene "B", producing "AB" hybrid offspring. If that offspring self pollinates and produces seeds, those seeds will be a cross of "AB" with "AB", producing "AA", "AB" and "BB" seeds. Now think about a hybrid plant with genes for lots of different traits, plus a possibly complex parentage, and you can see that successive generations grown from seed produced by hybrid plants are going to have a lot of variability.

Most (but not all) seed companies clearly label hybrid varieties, both in catalog description & on packet. Asking never hurts, if it's important to you to be able to save seeds from a variety. Sometimes, the hybrids will have qualities that make you willing to pay for fresh seeds again the following year!

Oh I do expect the hybrid seeds I PURCHASE to grow as described, I was referring to the seeds collected from THOSE plants. And I do (sort of) understand the basics of how hybrids work, I just didn't know if there was a way to tell what will or will not come true from seed. I knew that words like "species plant" or "heirloom" are pretty good indications that you can collect seeds from the plants you grow and those seeds will produce plants that look like the parent. I also knew that "hybrid" was an indication that this may NOT happen. I guess my question was/is, is there something in the description that I should be looking for that would tell me this for sure on any hybrid I buy. From what y'all have said, I have gathered that the answer is "not really." :) So I will just ask on any seeds I buy! Thanks!!!!

sorry, I was responding to the part where you said, "I mean, how do they know the seeds they sold me are going to turn out the way they describe if it's a crap shoot every time they do a "cross?" "

I know I'm not always real clear on my question(s)- not your fault! I was thinking a couple different things when I wrote that, but I never had a doubt that seeds I buy are going to turn out like they are supposed to. I think at that point I was thinking about brugmansia seeds as an example. You can cross "A" with "B" and each seed within that one pod is considered a genetically different plant, as I understand it. But I know that all plants aren't like brugs. But using that as an example, I just didn't know how they KNOW that what they sell as a hybrid will grow as they expected. But I clearly know nothing about hybridizing plants! LOL! It all confuses me so I think I will stick with my "ask the grower" method. Ha!

Open Pollinated is the term that you are searching for. Heirlooms are OP plants...species are OP plants. These will come true each year from seed that has been pollinated by the same kind of plant.

It is possible for OP plants to cross-pollinate and produce a hybrid. That is how many of the early veggie hybrids were done. Cross 2 OP/heirloom plants and stabilize the desireable offspring.

But, as stated above, if you are not saving seeds, the resulting cross will not show up until the next season. OP+OP= hybrid (F1) the next generation with all of the possible results are known as F2..

I was part of an experiment to stabilize a squash that was the result of a cross pollination. The F1 generation, we assumed, was the result of 2 OP plants and there were 4 different squashes that grew by accident. We dubbed the nicest one Serendipity and decided to stabilize it to an OP form...this usually takes between 5 and 10 years. The seeds we saved were only the Serendipity version of the cross...the next year we planted the S seeds, hoping to have fewer of the other 3 varients to cull from....well, Serendipity had at least one hybrid parent that got thrown into the mix, because the next season, we had no less that 8 new varients...plus the 4 we were already aware of...too many to mess with....and too many years down the road to a pure Serendipity. We scrapped the project.

If you are not trading specific cultivars and are not preserving an heirloom...well, it's like Forrest Gump said...'Life is like a box of chocolates....you never know what you may get'

Ha! Thanks Melody! But how disappointing to put all that time and effort into your project just to have to scrap it. :(

Ahh well, it was tasty...we ate all of the culls too.