Hybrid plants have been carefully bred to develop particular qualities, rather like thoroughbred dogs.
They are the result of painstaking efforts to isolate and hand pollinate specific plants with desired characteristics, and the expertise and effort required to perform hybridization means that they will cost more or there will be fewer seeds in a packet. Hybrid seed varieties might be more prolific, resist certain diseases, grow faster, develop more edible parts, or require less water than plants developed by the easy, traditional method of gardener aided evolution, acclimatizing plants in our own yards by saving seeds and growing them out in succeeding years. In many ways, they may be worth the extra cost but I have my doubts.
When we try to save seed from hybrids, subsequent plants usually revert to the parent plant or worse, the original plant from which the present variety was derived. One year I saved seed from a hybrid broccoli that grew plants the following year with only leaves and no florets! Another problem can occur with hybrid tomatoes that quickly get away on the gardener and develop into a tangled mess that fills with small, impossible to harvest tomatoes.
In our neck of the woods, if we want a harvest before summer’s end we must set our tomato plants outside as soon as the soil warms up and protect them from cold nights in situ. By the time it’s reliably warm enough to remove the protection, side shoots have already developed in abundance. Most of them should be removed to allow two or three shoots to flourish so the plant doesn’t get out of hand, but that removes energy from the plant. Hybrid tomatoes grow so quickly that side shoots continually branch out to develop side shoots of their own. Plants that had been placed well apart soon fill up the area, choking everything together. Such rapid growth requires more fertilizer and water so the plant won’t suffer from lack of nutrients.
If one diligently attends these tomatoes every day, ties in hand, prepared to nip off further side shoots and tie up chosen growing ones, there is no problem, but what happens when life intrudes? A few days go by without visiting the tomato patch and those side shoots have grown so long that the plant’s energy will be sapped when they are removed, but they must be removed because tangled vines prevent air circulation and trap moisture on the leaves to trigger the spores that cause late blight. Even without the blight, unpruned plants will also produce smaller tomatoes, many of which are hidden in the mass of vines and leaves.
While these hybrids undoubtedly have advantages, they seem as difficult to maintain as the purebred dog, so inbred that it is less healthy and shorter lived than the average mutt. Over the long term I prefer the seed I save from heirloom varieties, fully acclimatized and consistent from season to season. In a word, sustainable.
Please contact mary_lowther@yahoo.ca with questions and suggestions since I need all the help I can get.
