saving seeds.

[silverseeds]

I like some professional opinions here.

I havent really started saving seed till this year, besides a few things last year. Its kinda to late this year, but I have some questions.

Im going to be doing breeding work this next year, and also just in general, one thing I want to select for is earliness, would this mean I can select ANY beans from the ealiest producing plants. Like can I pick the first couple rounds of beans then save the last set of beans and still have the early genes? or would it be better, to save the first few pods on each early one, even though it would likelt limit my total output?

If I saved only the last set of beans each year for decades, would my beans get later and later, or do they carry identical genes as the first beans to form? I assume it each plant has ALL the same genes and early or late beans on that plant wouldnt matter but I want to make sure.

This same question for peas, and tomatoes and everything else too. although Im sure its the same.

My second question is about some corn I grew. I planted about 180 plabnts, TO CLOSE TOGETHER. I got ears on all of them, but everything was stunted. Can I use this seed next year? or did I mess up the germplasm somehow? Are the genes the same even if the corn was stressed? Im guessing it should be fine, the germplasm should be okay. But I want to make sure.

If you know the answers to these let me know. thanks

[grungy]

Beans - save seeds from you earliest producing plants. From my grandmother experience of doib
ng this over 40 years of gardening, she managed to gain 10 days - 2 weeks with one variety of pole beans. And before anyone asks, no I don't know the name and I have any of the beans. She gave them to her friend when she was diagnosised with cancer, and the her friend died the following summer.

Corn - although Alan may know more about the subject and therefore you should defer to his answer, my guess is that the genes will remain the same and the plants and cobs should return to normal size if you plant them with adequate distances between plants.

[silverseeds]

well does it matter if I save the FIRST seeds, or the last as long as its the early plants?

[PatrickW]

Are we professionals here?

Any time you save seeds you are saving the genetics of that plant, as well as possibly the genetics of the plant it crossed with. It doesn't matter if you save seeds early or late in the season, you still get the same genetics. All you need to concern yourself with is finding the plant with the traits you want, then saving the seeds from it.

As far as beans goes, you don't normally save seeds earlier or later. When the plants produce seeds, their life-cycle is over and they die. It's never a good idea in this situation to both eat and save seeds from the same plant, because when you eat from it you force it to produce more pods which contain progressively weaker seeds.

With a plant like tomatoes, which produces continuously, you can eat and save seeds from the same plant, but the seeds from the earlier fruits are often better. Again, you are saving that plant's DNA, so from that point of view it doesn't matter when in the season you save the seeds.

As far as the corn goes, this isn't really my plant and I don't have a lot of experience growing it. The DNA however will be fine in the seeds, but you might have a problem with viability of the seeds. You can always do a germination test in some wet paper towels. I would consider starting with fresh seeds, as it may be frustrating if you end up with spotty germination.

[silverseeds]

Ahh I figured the dna would be the same, but I hadnt thought of the fact the later seed WOULD be the same, but weaker, since the plant already expelled so much energy.

See this is why I asked. From next season out I will only be growing my own seeds, besides of course any new varieties I get. I want to make sure I keep everything as strogn as possible. wasnt even half an hour and it was the middle of the night yet, I have my answer.

I tried a few other sites, its amazing this site has so many fewer people yet the knowledge is off the charts. So I dont know if your professional, but I thinkin a way that most professionals just remind me of martha stewart. Most dont seem to get their hands dirty, theres exceptins I guess, but my books are not interactive. For instance seed to seed, just doesnt nswer this type of thing. Carol deppes book likely does, and I read and reread it, but shes SO professional I have to go slow to digest it, nearly everytime I read it I have another breakthrough.

Im pretty intelligent, but Im the type that doesnt feel like they understand something until I know it forward and backwards. I have to build it up in levels. like that apple bush thread, after the help I got there, the deeper aspects of those things are making sense ome when they didnt before.

[silverseeds]

for the record I did basically know the answer, I just like to verify, and clarify.

[PatrickW]

Especially when you are sharing your seeds with others, but also for your own purposes, it's always important to try to get the best quality seeds you can. This is one of those things that takes a few years to figure out, but it's just as important to work on as the genetics of the plant.

Lots of people ask me questions like 'I left my seeds all year in my hot greenhouse, will they still grow?' or 'My neighbor grew a variety that might cross with one of mine, can I still save seeds?'. The answer is always maybe, but really -- if you're a serious gardener, it's important to sort these kinds of things out! Half-good, years old and stored in the sun, maybe crossed seeds that might germinate aren't much good to anyone.

If you want to save seeds of a particular variety, it's important to give some thoughts to all the isolation and growing needs of the plant early in the season, then save and store the seeds in the best way you know how. While we all talk about plant diseases, there's not a lot of discussion here about storing seeds. Probably as many of us will lose stored seeds as will lose plants to diseases.

There's really a lot to saving seeds properly, and it's a good idea to research these kinds of things as much as possible.

Of course everyone needs to learn sometime, and indeed learning is a life long process for this kind of thing. While you are learning and experimenting, it's really a good idea not to share your seeds with others.

[silverseeds]

Well I worked on a farm for 7 years, I can probably pick nearly anything faster, then most people you ever saw. but didnt learn much about anything but picking and laying aluminum irrigation pipes. I did fall in love with plants though.

because of reasons you just said I have not saved any seed yet, besides a few I intend to save this year, and hopi red dye amaranth from last year. Ive got all kinds of experiments going.

Next year Im going to trial 200 plus varieties, double that if I can get that much seed, I have a friend who will let me use their yard,if I need it.

Im going to bag blossoms, and hand pollinate everything. I have tricky conditions, short season, warm to hot days, DRY, and cool nights even in the dead of summer its cool at night.

Ive been finding in the last three years some things you wouldnt expect to do good here love it, and others I would have though would do good here dont.

So once I figure out what does good here, Im going to cross them all, the following year, I will do my selections, in an elaborate set of tests Im planning, and cross the selected ones again that year. diverging it into a few directions . the next year I will grow the seperate "groupings" Mass selection again for many variables, and at this point I will seperate it into various directions more concretely. Im going to do this same basic plan with everything. I might grow particularly good varieties as well without crossing keeping it pure, just so I have a reliable harvest, but I will be doing massive breeding too.

I have a few farther reaching projects as well. a few mirror things people connected to this site are doing. I dont even particularly want to grow corn, the min reason I am is because others do want too. Ultimately I want to breed the most ideal crops for this area I can muster. Not to many gardeners here, I assume its because of the seed and plants available. Only wal mart sells seed and plants here directly. I bought some of every major crop they had just to see, clearly they are not for this region. AT ALL. might be fine for an area with this short of season, but not our cool nights.

So I feel to bring this area up to par with the rest of the world on this green revolution that seems to be brewing, I need to single out the best of everything, and many varieties at that, people like choice.

I want to be self sufficient as well, and cant stand GMO food. organic is not common here on veggies and fruits, although some other things I can get. SO I have many reasons.

I have to say when I first started growing for myself, after the farm I had NO idea th true diversity out there. Its absolutely amazing what time, and breeding can do. Im hooked, I never knew what to devote my life o, and now I do. I think I know more then it might seem sometimes, and less then it seems others, lol.

Im very impressed with the people here, and as I work out my missions I feel very blessed to have this resource, and all of you passionate knowledgable people blazing the trail ahead of me. Also Im truly wondering, when I get what I am after how it will do other places. For instance, if I can breed plants that do well here with limited irrigation, how would it do in other areas of the world WITHOUT irrigation.

I had a pretty basic pln when I started, I was mainly focused on other thing, considered his a side issue, until I truly knew the potential. Now I am obsessed with knowledge on it.

I think I store my seeds well. I keep them in a cool area, inside old ammo cans, which are airtight. A few things I keep in the fridge.

It also gets more spiritual. I have dreams guide me in this life. Maybe it is a mirror of my daily mind, but either way, I was guided here by them, and am lead to think me or my seedswill or can play a major role in this areas future. I have had dozens of "impossible" things happen to me.

This is a long strange post I think, not even sure where I am going with it, but something you said triggered me to want to share these things.

[PatrickW]

It all sounds great SS, I'm looking forward to hearing how it comes out and helping where I can...

[Alan]

Corn is a strange plant......there is nothing in the wild that represents it "closely" enough for comfort.

It is a mutation of a mutation of a cross of two parents of which only one is known.


So here is the deal with corn:

The larger the seed the more viable, the more room to grow the larger the seed and the cob. Seed should only be saved from the best examples of the best ears and middle section of each ear not the tip or the butt of the plant, unless of course your genetics are very limited.

You will often here people say you need to save seed from at least 200 plants, not in the first generation you don't, if you only start with 100 plants, seed from those plants in the first generation is sufficient for ferreting out the genes that you will find useful in your situation, in years after that the more plants the better if you want to retain all of the traits of that corn, some of it is just piddly little things to not fret about however.

If you save only large seeds you will eventually only get large seeded corn, the opposite is true if you save only small seeds. If you save seeds from the butt of the corn you will get kernels of that size and type, same for the tip, this is why you save only from the center of the ear.

With corn the plant grows in segments, usually one segment per lunar cycle, each segment in traditional populations after tastleing should provide 1 to 2 ears, in the Northern Hemisphere it is traditional to only get one segment and possibly two which produce due to day length sensitivity, the lower on the plant you select your seed ears the earlier the corn will produce in coming seasons, this is how corn from the Southern Hemisphere/equitorial regions was adapted over time to produce in the Northern Hemisphere.

For cool soil germination in new breeding experiments it is best to plant heaily and then thin down to the best of the seedlings that emerge or if there are few seedlings that emerge to replant with seed from the same stock to pass the cool soil tolerence onto the rest of the population, over years you will create a corn with not only good cool soil emergence but some amount of frost tolerance in this way.

Hope this helps.

[silverseeds]

Yes it helps alot. Thanks alan. Earliness, and cool tolerance are two things I am particularly looking for. I appreciate everyones time. thanks, This will help me immensely for when I am selecting out of my crossed populations....

[silverseeds]

Alan if you come nack and see this, I had one other question about corn, should I star over with my corn since I planted it to close together and its stunted? or maybe save seed from the ones which did well anywa, AND mix in new seed? this will be part of a long term project of mine I dont want it weakened. but it kinda seems like the ones which did well despite being to close might be good genes to have singled out, and thus highlighted following years.

[paquebot]

Aug 18, 2009 1:47:26 GMT -5 PatrickW said:

As far as beans goes, you don't normally save seeds earlier or later. When the plants produce seeds, their life-cycle is over and they die. It's never a good idea in this situation to both eat and save seeds from the same plant, because when you eat from it you force it to produce more pods which contain progressively weaker seeds.

I don't think so! The plant is genetically programmed to produce the same genes from seed one to the end.

Martin

[Alan]

What he means I think Martin is that if you are robbing the plant of seeds by eating them your robbing it of energy which could be used in the production of larger and more viable seeds as opposed to it loosing some amount of energy in the further production of seeds.


Silverseeds, I would keep the best of what you have and mix it into what you want to work with.

Also in the area you are the following piece of information will come in handy:

Drought tolerance genes in corn are associated with tasling and silking on the same day. Because both parts of the flower are emerging at the same time the ear will produce quicker and thus hopefully avoid a prolonged pollination and maturing period which might subject it to a period of drought.

[silverseeds]

WOW, thanks ALOT. seriously. Those three things are my main criteria, that and earliness, which Im selecting all early varieties for my base anyway so thats covered. I truly truly appreciate it.