F1 Hybrid

A conversation the other day re tomato plants and which varieties remain true in subsequent sowings (do tomato plants grow up to resemble their mothers?) reminded me how F1, tagged onto the name of a tomato in a catalogue meant nothing to me when first selecting seeds. So I thought I’d use Saturday Swot Shop to see if I’ve now got the hang of what  it’s referring to.

F1 – what does it stand for ?

• Filial 1. Referring to a first filial generation.

First generation of ?

• A cross between two different parents. Each parent has attractive and desirable qualities and the idea is to produce a new variety which feature the best chosen qualities of each parent.
• To achieve this, pollination is controlled to ensure that the plants only cross with each other. In addition before this cross pollination happens each parent is bred many times in succession to make sure that it is only reproducing itself in an identical fashion. Once this is assured it can be referred to as a pure line.
• Two pure lines are taken and cross pollinated and they produce a new variety which is referred to as a F1 Hybrid.

What happens after that ?

• With F1 hybrids the cross pollination always has to take place between the two pure lines. An F1 hybrid can only be achieved by that controlled pollination being orchestrated by the person who has the two pure lines of the parent plants to cross .

So to get that variety I will always have to buy more seeds as opposed to saving my own seeds and growing more plants from that ?

• Yes. If you were to grow plant from seed that was sown and then saved by you the new plants will be different from the original hybrid.  They do not ‘grow true’ . What happens is that they display characteristics which belonged to more distant versions of each parent.

So a throw back as opposed to a pip off the old block !