Heirloom seeds what is

Basically there are two main ways to describe your seeds, the genetics of your seeds and how your seeds were grown. Heirlooms are seed varieties that are at least 50 years old, and you can save these seeds and plant them year after year.

Heirlooms are never hybrids or GMOs. Hybrids are crosses of heirloom varieties. If you save hybrid seeds, you won't get what you expect. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. GMOs are Genetically Modified seeds.

They are created in a lab where the basic genetic material of the seed is being altered, usually to make them resistant to an herbicide. Open pollinated To be an heirloom seed, the variety must be open pollinated. This means that seeds can be planted, the resulting plants allowed to mature and seeds collected to be replanted the next season.

The collected seeds would be expected to "breed true" with regards to the traits of the parent plant. Once the seeds are planted and replanted, passed down from generation to generation through standard breeding methods and retain their original traits, the variety can be considered an heirloom.

Certain tree fruits such as the apple can be propagated through non-seed methods and are still considered "heirlooms" if they have been passed down for several generations. Open pollination by definition will occasionally produce mutants or in certain easy-crossing varieties like melons, produce new varieties. For these reasons, to keep an heirloom seed strain pure, it is important to select seeds from plants producing traits that are in line with the original variety.

To use an example, if a yellow brandywine tomato accidentally crosses with a small red cherry tomato, resulting in fruits that are medium sized and red, that daughter plant would no longer be considered the same variety as either of its parents.

Parentage This area has a lot debate, with some sources arguing a variety can only be an heirloom if it was passed down amongst families or communities. In this line of thinking, an old seed variety that was once a commercial variety could not be an heirloom.

This can be confusing though, because a number of varieties have either an unclear origin, or the variety is an open pollinated type that was once commercialized. Whether parentage is of importance would be up to you. Are open pollinated seeds heirlooms? For the average gardener, the terms "heirloom" and "open pollinated" can seem interchangeable. All heirloom varieties are open pollinated but not all open pollinated varieties are heirlooms.

Modern open pollinated varieties essentially contain most of the same traits heirloom varieties do except they are of more recent origin.

For practical planting purposes, heirlooms and modern open pollinated varieties can be treated much the same way.

In both cases one can save seeds for replanting the following season and expect a relatively true breeding line. If you are looking for vareities that are naturally produced, breed true and seeds can be saved then both open pollinated and heirloom varieties will work for you. OK, so then what is a hybrid seed? For example, changes in the environment, soils, atmosphere, etc. Please enable JavaScript to pass antispam protection! Antispam by CleanTalk. Edit Edit source.

Categories : Seeds Gardening.