tasty toms saved seeds

[hollychap]

last year i saved some seeds from some very tasty tomatos i bought from tescos i only raised one plant as a trial the toms it as produced are a strawberry shape not like the originals which were normal tom shaped . i presume the ones i bought were f1s but i cant be certain i know f1 saved seed wont grow true but what about if i save some seeds from the ones i have grown will they grow true

[rustylady]

Save some seed and sow them and see what happens. It's well worth a go.

[lottie dolly]

thats what i did,only asda,it tells you on the pkt what varietiy is,mine were baby sanmarzano,howerever,the toms that grew were anything but little,were a dark red/wine with a green top,looked more like a very wrinkly beef stake,now what few i had,were far tastier than the originals,i to have saved seed,and look forwards to seeing what i get next year,i would think,hopefully the big beefy ones again,nothing to loose by planting some more next year,if only for curiosity,

[ancee]

Ooh how weird isn't it when they looked nothing like their parents? - Can see an episode of Jeremy Kyle here... who is the Daddy?!!! Think the pic of your two small tomatoes is very funny by the way!

[Snadger]

I may be wrong, but if you grow plants from F1 derived seeds, in the first year you get a hotchpotch of different plants. If you save the seed from one of the F2's? the following year the plants should be the same as the ones you got the seed from.
As an example, I got a Cedrico tomato off someone and sowed the seeds. The plants weren't all like Cedrico, but a good proportion were.
I kept seed from the best plant and sowed it this year. The plants I grew were like the parent plant and were all the same, with enough of the Cedrico qualities for me once again to save seed from the best plant for next year.

[hollychap]

thanks for the replies , this year was the first growing in the large greenhouse at the lottie i planted 17 differant varietys 2 of them were saved seed from supermarket bought toms it was a poor growing year and a lot of the toms grown i thought were quite bland apart from this one which as an exellent flavour so i will save some seeds from this crop hoping it will reproduce the same toms. i checked my seed tin and still have a lot from the original but as snadger says they may be hotchpotch

[lottie dolly]

I may be wrong, but if you grow plants from F1 derived seeds, in the first year you get a hotchpotch of different plants. If you save the seed from one of the F2's? the following year the plants should be the same as the ones you got the seed from.
As an example, I got a Cedrico tomato off someone and sowed the seeds. The plants weren't all like Cedrico, but a good proportion were.
I kept seed from the best plant and sowed it this year. The plants I grew were like the parent plant and were all the same, with enough of the Cedrico qualities for me once again to save seed from the best plant for next year.

all my ones were the same,no hotch pots,and no chance of a mix up with other varieties i had either,even the plants i past on to others were exactly the same results,so will look forwards to see what develops next year,i found it very strange,and just assumed that the original supermarket baby sanz were an f1,a google suggests that they are,just hope i get same as this year,much better than the origins baby's,

[Snadger]

I've grown a Gardeners Delight type of tomato this year which although it has straggly growth is much tastier and sweeter than GD. No Idea where I got it from but two of the fruits are now sitting on the greenhouse shelf with a label stuck in em labelling them as 'Small Sweetie' for next years seed.

[Sarico]

what i know about genetic is that after 7 generation there is a big chance of return of ome of the parent plant... technically every year the genes change so every year you will have a different tomato plant with some different....

[hamamelis]

Lottie Dolly; I'm not exactly a qualified geneticist, but maybe the plants you grew from the seed are the f1 ones? Just if the fruit you grew look significantly different from the fruit you bought, but are all consistent, that sounds more like the plants you just grew are f1 rather than f2, which would be varied (how varied depends on what the initial parent varieties in the cross were).

So maybe your supermarket ones were actually accidently fertilised by a different mystery variety? I know that's supposed to be rare for tomatoes, (especially with the mass grown supermarket ones) but it could happen if they were growing several types at the tomato farm- did you save all the seed from a single tomato?

Some of the next lot should look roughly like the ones you had this year regardless of the generation- just maybe not many... Worth a shot anyway, might get something else interesting!