Yes, they can and will cross with each other if you have bees present, mainly tiny little sweat bees that you may not notice (mine are green or black and hard to see). If a bee does cross a tomato flower, most of the seed will still be the result of self pollination because of the way the flower is built, but you may have anywhere from 1%-40% seed that is crossed in that fruit.

Thanks spiced ham, so a heirloom is just as easily crossed as any other tomato and a means of isolation is needed to insure pure seeds if you are saving seed?

Dale

Dale, please go to the top of this first page and click on the FAQ blue link and then scroll down until you find the article on How TO Prevent Cross POllination and I think all of your questions will be answered.

If not, after you read it just post your question here in your thread.

Carolyn

carolyn137, I appreciate your concern with trying to teach me to use the FAQ's but my question was not How do I prevent cross pollination. Maybe a little info concerning the question at hand would have been more appropriate.

Dale

thepodpiper

For a newbie, you certainly don't make use of Garden Web's many resources before asking a question that's been asked and discussed hundreds of times before, that is so frequently asked that it's included in GW's FAQs.

In fact, forum discussion how-tos ask people, presumably newbies who aren't familiar with how Garden Web works and how much work has gone into the FAQs and hundreds of posts, to read the FAQs and search GardenWeb before posting questions to see if the answer has already been posted.

Why the snippity answer? Carolyn 137's advice was good advice. Your original question just needed a Yes or No answer and nothing else. She was just suggesting how you could obtain more information than your question merited if you were interested and come back with specifics that haven't been answered.

Whether or not a variety is a heirloom or a hybrid has nothing to do with cross pollination. All tomatoes can cross as the FAQ points out.

Tomatoes are, self-fertile but as the many previous discussions on this question also indicate, crossing between tomato plants is quite minimal. That is true in my experience as well. In many years of seed saving I have encountered less than 10 crosses, more like maybe 6 in some 40 years.

For some reason spiced ham posts that he has consistently have a much higher rate of crossing than most of us do. Why, I can't say.

But the FAQ Carolyn pointed you to also goes into great detail on how to prevent it should you desire to do so and no, isolation is far from the only way to accomplish that.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Cross pollination discussions

Perfectly put Dave, my question is answered.

Dale

and a means of isolation is needed to insure pure seeds if you are saving seed?

*****

Dale, above is the question you asked and I suggested that you read the FAQ, not how to read "a" FAQ b'c the FAQ answers your question and also suggests several ways of **isolation**, which answers the question you asked.

Carolyn