Sow Your Own
(Page 3 of 6)
January/February 2008
Tina Marie Wilcox and Susan Belsinger
Save your own seed
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Once you get hooked on starting your garden from seed, you will want to consider supplying your own. Seed saving isn’t difficult or mysterious, but to achieve good success, you need to keep a few things in mind.
If you are interested in obtaining seed that will be true to the parent variety, you need to be sure that the parent isn’t a hybrid and you need to know something about the way pollination occurs for that particular species. Consider tomatoes, for example.
If you grew a hybrid tomato, its seed will yield a mix of plants with highly variable characteristics. However, since tomatoes are self pollinating (pollen from the male components of the flower fertilize female components of the same flower), non-hybrid tomatoes will produce seed that’s true to type. There is no problem with collecting seed from different tomato varieties grown near one another since the likelihood of pollen from one plant fertilizing another plant is pretty slim.
With plants like corn and squash, however, the male and female reproductive organs are borne by different flowers, so they depend on pollen moving reasonable distances for fertilization. If you have several varieties of corn growing near one another, the seed each produce will be a mixed bag. If you don’t want to manage the fertilization artificially, then it’s important to plant different varieties at least 200 feet apart if you want seed that’s true to form. As with tomatoes, seed from any hybrid corn or squash will not be true to type.
In general, seed should be collected from the healthiest plants (true to type) in the group (rather than small, deformed or diseased plants) after it is ripe. Gather the seed when the seed/pod/fruit has ripened. Fruit containing seed should be slightly overripe for eating.
For the best genetic preservation, collect seed from several plants rather than a single specimen.
Seed in pods should be gathered on a sunny day, after the dew has dried, by snipping the stem just below the pods and placing them in a paper bag. Winged seed, such as lettuce, will blow away in stages as they ripen. For best results, place a small paper bag over the top of the plant and secure it around the stem with a rubber band to keep the seed contained until the stem is cut. Be sure to label and date the bags. Store the bags, open at the top, in a well-ventilated area until you can clean the seed.
Cleaning most seed involves removing it from leaves, stems and chaff; a sieve is often helpful for cleaning small seed. Larger seed can be threshed and winnowed in moving air. The lighter chaff blows away and the seed falls down onto a tray or cloth. Spread the seeds on a screen, tray or newspaper in a warm dry place, away from light. Keep labels with the seed, and be sure it is completely dry before storing.
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