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Thread: Ya get what you pay for,I guess

  1. #1
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    Default Ya get what you pay for,I guess

    Last spring we bought some cheap seeds that we figured we would start for our fall garden. When I say cheap I do mean cheap. If memory serves me right about a dime a pack. Anyway I started some of them late in the spring and they are just now starting to make. I was checking the pepper plants today and got a surprise. What was supposed to be red,yellow and orange bell peppers is instead a mix of bell and hot peppers. Color seems to be right just not the varity. Also some of the maters that were supposed to be rutger look more like sweet 100's as they have started blooming. Oh well. Get what you pay for I guess.

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    yeah its theway of the land anymore, ive done that same thing. so yur not alone, seeds have become expensive is for sure, and i think quality has went down in all brands, really , hopefully you will get some good eats off of them anyhow

  3. #3

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    What seeds should I buy?
    I've heard that most seds sold today are genetically modified. True? Don't GM seeds work right? Something bad? Where do I get "natural seeds?

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    Seeds have been genetically engineered for centuries. It's called cross pollinating or grafting. We've simply discovered a simpler, more economical way to do it through manipulating the various genes rather than the whole fruit. Which you want to buy depends entirely on whether you want to harvest seeds or not. If you want to harvest seeds then look for heirloom varieties or open pollinated varieties. These plants produce viable seeds for future planting. Just avoid hybrid plants. They do NOT produce viable seeds. If you are not interested in harvesting seeds then simply look for the type of characteristics you want in a fruit. Store leftover seeds in the fridge and they will be good for 4-5 years.
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    Senior Member wtrfwlr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sofasurfer View Post
    What seeds should I buy?
    I've heard that most seds sold today are genetically modified. True? Don't GM seeds work right? Something bad? Where do I get "natural seeds?
    The genetically modified seeds are popular because they will produce more consistently and produce more and better fruits or vegetables. They are disease resistant and are more tolerant of extremes in temperature and wet or dry conditions. The drawback for all these benefits is, as Rick pointed out, You have to buy the seeds each year. You can, for instance, save your tomato seeds from a modified plant but when you plant it the next year, even though it may grow a tomato plant it may not make any tomatoes and if it does they may be very small or not ripen. Heirloom seeds on the other hand can be saved and planted year after year and will produce the same as the year before but will also fail in light of the conditions that are mentioned above.
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    Senior Member ClayPick's Avatar
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    A lot seed companies make false claims about their seeds. They run seed trials in to limited a geographical area and sell them in a large one. Often they don’t show a proper phenotypic response.
    On top of that you get someone collecting seed from hybridized plants and there goes the uniformity. Then there are heirlooms, that business is getting so large it makes you wonder if anyone is really saving seed. Even heirlooms need a bit of selection by a seed saver to keep the variety strong.
    Hybrids get a bad rap. Many originated from home gardeners with an interest in plant breeding and the laws that govern inheritance. One only needs to maintain the breeding stock to have uniformity in a hybrid. Just some food for thought.

  7. #7

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    Hybrids get a bad rap. Many originated from home gardeners with an interest in plant breeding and the laws that govern inheritance. One only needs to maintain the breeding stock to have uniformity in a hybrid. Just some food for thought.
    Not entirely true. Without getting into a course on Mendelian genetics, hybrid plants will not necessarily breed true even if kept totally isolated from other varieties. Unless the genetic traits useful in making the hybrid a better plant exist as genetically reinforced recessives, you are likely to get a 25/50/25 or a 25/75 scatter on offspring from a hybrid planting, usually with the hybrid traits as one of the 25%s. If you have a hybrid with multiple traits (ie disease resistance, bush-type, and purple instead of yellow), you could end up with a jumble of offspring with a variety of those traits with very few of them actually the same as the parent plant. That doesn't necessarily mean the seeds will be inviable. It just means the fruit you plan on harvesting, as Rick said, may not be as large or as disease resistant or the same color as the parent.

    It's the GMO plants called 'Terminator' varieties that scare the crap out of me. They are modified to not produce viable seed so you HAVE to buy more seed the next year. As far as I know, these have not yet been brought to market. But, there are other GMOs that have bits of DNA in them that would never get there by breeding that are in full production worldwide. The corn varieties now that have bT producing genes for instance http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef130.asp Or GMO Soybeans that can be sprayed with Roundup. I often wonder if there isn't a connection between this soybean, mass planted since the late 90s, and some of the peanut allergy problems which seem to be rampant today.

    On the topic of seeds, I've had problems the last few years with seeds from various places not growing true to description. One of those places was a subsidiary of Burpee, which you would never expect. And some seed just not growing at all. I had a whole selection of 'organic' lettuce seeds (not Burpee) that just didn't sprout. I tested some for viability using a felt mat and got nothing.

    But I do have a whole pile of sugar pumpkins on the counter that I harvested this morning that came from seed that sprouted from the compost. There are also some butternut squash coming along that I didn't plant either. I'm perfectly happy to eat them whether they look like their parents or not.
    Last edited by LowKey; 08-26-2012 at 12:16 PM.

  8. #8
    Senior Member ClayPick's Avatar
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    Known true breeding parent x known true breeding parent (anything less is a waste of time) shoudn’t show that much diversity in the first filial. That kind of segregation comes from second and third filial? I like this stuff.

  9. #9

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    But are we talking Heirloom seed or are we talking hybrid seed?
    Heirloom seed is open pollinated. If the genetic base is diverse, robust and the planting is very diversified, the plants remain relatively stable, all though you will see sports now and again in much the same way you see occasional mutants in animal breeding. If you only save seed from a single plant though, now you are cutting your diversity. On heirloom varieties, best to save seed from the better plants and from a diverse number of fruits.

    For hybrid seed let's pretend.
    Your tomatoes have blue skins. it takes two chromosomes to make blue skins. b + b
    Other tomatoes have red skins. They are the dominant color so they are R + R
    You create a hybrid. Now you have a R+b tomato and the skins on that tomato are still red because the R for red is dominant.

    Ok, cross the hybrid with another hybrid. Your possibilities are R + R (red skins), R+b (still red skins and the same cross as the parent) and b+b blue skins
    In simple mendelian genetics you have a 25% chance of B+B, 50% chance of B+b and 25% chance of b+b.

    or set up this way (one parent on the top of the grid, the other to the side.)
    ___R____b
    R__RR__Rb
    b _Rb___bb

    Depending on if a hybrid trait is dominant or recessive, your outcome could be good or bad.
    And of course you may be dealing with more than one trait and many many chromosomes so it's never really just this simple.
    For instance, if you live in an area where an R+R tomato would die because it lacks a resistance to blight, that R+R seedling will die. If the b + b seedling in your area also lacks resistance to blight that seedling will die too. The hybrid vigor of the R + b seedling may help perpetuate the cross but only if the others die before setting flowers. On the other hand, if the red or blue skin colors have nothing to do with survival you will continue to get various crosses as the generations go on. Unless you cull the plants with blue skinned tomatoes and there is something different about an R+R red that lets you cull that one as well by not saving seed from it. I can try to make this more confusing but I'm sure most have stopped reading by now as Lowkey just keeps blathering on and on and on. LOL.
    Last edited by LowKey; 08-26-2012 at 09:40 PM.

  10. #10
    Senior Member ClayPick's Avatar
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    Ok, what I am calling a hybrid is the Holy Grail of the seed industry. An f1 hybrid with a desired set of traits and hybrid vigor that makes it perform far better than its parents. Any seed collected beyond the f1 is hybrid garbage that has lost its vigor and uniformity. Making the desired traits 90% stable in each of the UNRELATED parents is the skill of the plant breeder. Their progeny being the f1 plants.

  11. #11
    Senior Member grrlscout's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sofasurfer View Post
    Where do I get "natural seeds?
    It's up to you, whether you decide to go GMO, non-GMO, hybrid or heirloom or whatever. I tend to go with open-pollinated heirlooms.

    As ClayPick mentioned, a lot of seeds are tested in climates that are totally unlike my own (the low desert). So I figure, if a plant survives, or especially if it thrives in the microclimate of my garden, I want to keep seeds from it. That way, I have saved the best seeds for my particular garden.

    Yes, I do get a lot of failure. I'm OK with that. If they fail, then nature has decided that plant is not suitable for that environment. But with every season, I get fewer failures and more successes, with less "babying".

    When I want to buy new varieties, I usually buy from one of these guys:

    Seed Savers Exchange
    Native Seeds / SEARCH - especially for SW natives that can tolerate the heat and dryness here.
    Seeds of Change
    Renee's Garden

    Here is a whole directory of companies who have signed the Safe Seed Pledge, organized by state:
    http://www.councilforresponsiblegene...spx?pageId=261

    Happy growing!
    Last edited by grrlscout; 08-27-2012 at 02:53 PM.

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    For many years I took part in 'trials, run by the Horticulture dept at University of Wisconsin Parkside.

    Generally they would include 2 verities or something ....like say, orange beets, two kinds.....then you grow them and report your results.... For your area and Zone.

    Was quite a list of stuff to try.....and they included a free soil test so as to add to the results.....Then would send you a report of the compiled results.

    I have never seen those particular verities for sale....???

    I tend to use open pollinated, heirloom verities that I can save seed for....In particular are my "Purple Climbing Beans".....You can fine bush verities everywhere, but the climbers are harder to find.....and these breed true and have for years.

    Another is a "Roma" type tomato with seeds from Italy....huge meaty tomato for paste and sauce....Sadly I miss saving seeds one year, and lost it.

    Hybrids are fine, but you already know it's a one shot deal....so don't even try to save seeds.

    My "survival seeds" are mostly, I confess, the $.09 cents a pack.......a few of everything, in a metal can in the freezer.
    I actually have had good luck with these over the years, as a basic garden planting.

    Then I add the odd balls and cool stuff, just to try out.

    This year my garden is two tomato and two pepper plants, and the stuff that comes up every year, horseradish (invasive), mint (invasive), egyptian onions (invasive), rhubarb, chives....and a whole lot of purslane (very invasive).
    maybea good thing as it was so hot and dry, lots of people's gardens didn't much....even if watered (not the same)

    Past few years my peas, beans, lettuce and spinach, got wiped out by the rabbits, sweet corn, by mice, I saw them stripping the ears......and the cukes always seem to need harvesting when I'm not home.

    So it's farmers market real regular this year.
    Last edited by hunter63; 08-27-2012 at 01:31 PM. Reason: splin'
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  13. #13

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    Holy crap!!

  14. #14

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    F1 hybrids are highly sought, yes.
    but:
    One only needs to maintain the breeding stock to have uniformity in a hybrid
    is only true if the parents themselves aren't hybrids. Maintaining the original stock that created the F1 you seek is not always easy either. If you are going to select plants for seed perpetuation purposes, best to stick with the heirloom open-pollinated varieties that grow best in your area. I'm still working trials on heirlooms for my smallish garden (about 500sf). Still trying to find a corn and a tomato that works here. The standard heirloom Bantams never set ears and so far the heirloom tomatoes have all gotten late season blight. I've got a cherry tomato though that works well.

    I don't think it's my imagination that there are far more plant diseases these days compared to when I was a kid. Seems back 40 years ago, you just planted a seed and stood back out of the way. Now between the blights and the insects, it's tough to get anything to table let alone continued on to seed.

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sofasurfer View Post
    Holy crap!!
    Holy crap....what?
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    Maybe he's feeling a bit under the weather????
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