Seed collecting

[bugsy]

I'd like to collect and use seeds from plants now going to seed. First question is can I immediately replant the lettuce seeds for a fall crop? Second, if plants were from hybrid seeds will the gathered seeds germinate?

[TZ-OH5]

I don't know if lettuce needs cold stratification or not. Do a google search on how to grow lettuce or growing lettuce and you should get lots of info.


Hybrid vegetables are simply vegetables that have genetically different parents of the same species (tomato a x tomato b = tomato c), unlike hybrids between two species (horse x donkey = mule), so seed from a hybrid vegetable is perfectly viable unless it is some weird parent combo to produce a seedless variety. Non hybrid varieties are genetically stable so that the seed offspring is genetically identical to the parent plant. The reason we are told not to plant seeds from hybrid vegetables is that the genes from the two different parent separate into different random combinations in the offspring and you will not get something exactly like the parent any more than you are exactly like your mother or father, and just like siblings in a family what grows out are not all alike, you may not like some of the plants that grow out of that seed.


Growing out hybrids can be fun though. I grew out seeds from a dwarf green tomato plant crossed with a red cherry tomato plant and got full sized and dwarf plants and fruit colors included red, green, yellow and "black". Some tasted great others just OK. Production ranged from high (equal to the parent varieties) to low.

[ianlong]

you can not immediately plant seeds or they will rot! first let them dry

[Bud]

Seeds saved from hybrids my give you plants that aren't like the parents but most likely they should work. In fact if you save the seed from the best plants for several years, they should become stable.