Good for you thanks

Your should be growing more than one plant of each variety, and from them select the best fruits from the best plants over a period of a few months--if you have so long a growing period.

Fermentation is a very iffy method, especially for beginners. I no longer recommend it and dop prefer a sani-scrub. I'll paste in a link. This method, btw, is available in a pdf. I was jusr recently told that the USDA is sharing a printout of the pdf version at their DC Visitor Center.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Clean Tomato Seeds

For genetic reasons one should never save seeds from just one fruit, better many fruits from one plant and better still many fruits from two plants, etc. And that hasto do with thepossibility of natural X pollinations if you don't bag blossoms or grow plants at isolation distances.

There's a great article here at GW on how to prevent cross pollination which you can find by going to the top of this page, clicking on the FAQ's and scrolling down until you see that article. With pictures.

Tom Wagner does single line seed saving which is quite different from the rest of us and he also uses TSP, which is very caustic and I don't reccommend it for us home growers. he also saves seed from unripe fruits and can do that b'c he is using TSP. TOm is a tomato breeder and so uses methods that many of us wouldn't.

As to how to process seeds, Trudi knows that I suggest fermentation over any of the oxidative methods and the main reason for that, and I think there's a thread here which discusses it indetail,maybe elsewhere, I can't remember right now, is b'c there's no data to say how effective those methods are nor what infectious pathogens they might remove. But there is such data from Dr. Helene Dillard who had grants from Campbells and Heinz when she was at the USDA station in Geneva, NY.

For sure the oxidative methods are quicker, not smelly, etc., but I'm one of many who will stick with fermentation until I see the kind of data I want to see for the alternative.

Why not try both and see how it goes?

Pete, you know the female parent for the cross you mentioned, which is Indian Stripe, a variety I introduced andlike very much, but how do you know what the male pollen parent could be when bees, which do most of the X pollination, can fly a very long way?

If all the ovules in the tomato ovary of IS were X pollinatged then all the seeds you saved would be F1 hybrid seeds, but that's not usually the case, so with your saved F2 seeds you could get almost anything including normal IS plants that were self pollenized. But remember that if Stupice is involved, since it has PL foliage you may not see that showing up in the initial growout b'c that trait is recessive.

If you have the greatest bee activity early in the season, then save fruits from later maturing ones, and the reverse holds true as well. That is if you're not bagging blossoms, etc. Having catfaced fruits early in the season is quite common and usually indicates self pollenization when temps are low. There's nothing wrong with saving seeds from cat faced fruits if you want to, but I usually pick the best fruits for seed saving and not jsut all the big ones.

There;s genetic diversity within a variety so saving seeds form fruits of different sizes is a good thing.

And it's sure fun to work with accidental crosses if you have the room, same for those who do directed crosses these days.

Been there, done that. LOL

Carolyn

Carolyn,

Maybe you should check AGRICOLA or Google Scholar to find the docs you're looking for, apparently, a lot of universities have been using a chlorine soak to destroy exterior pathogens on tomato seeds. There are many variations in percentage of strength and duration of time, some even suggesting a one-two punch of TSP followed by chlorine bleach. Many of the search results also name the pathogens.

Thanks for comments.

Trudi, you sent me some seeds a few weeks ago along with seed saving instructions. I appreciate your work, thanks. I'm lucky to have two short seasons, although sometimes I'd rather have one longer season. The Fall here in North Texas is good only for early-season varieties and sometimes mid-season varieties.

Carolyn, saving seed using fermentation seems pretty simple. I have read about the method in many different places. I'll pay closer attention this time though. In a couple of the batches I saved last year I did not get a good mold on top, so I left the seeds for 5 or 6 days. I believe I may have added too much water. Some people say not to add any water unless evaporation is expected. This year I added only about a teaspoon and left the seeds on my back porch in the shade, uncovered. Since our temperatures have been in the mid 90's, fermentation started quickly. I stirred the seeds a couple times and rinsed them off after about 40 hours. Most of the gel around the seeds was gone, so I think they were fermented enough. Anyway, I'll keep practicing and will give the chemical method a try next time.

As far as selecting fruit to save, I am saving from 3 or 4 fruits, but usually only from one plant since most of the time I only grow one of each type(I love trying different ones, even after trying around 75 varities(;

I didn't know that there's a chance I may get a true Indian Stripe if not all the ovules in the IS ovary were pollinated with X pollen. I hope that's the case, because that particular strain of IS has been a winner in my garden the last 3 years. Finally, I understand that the X pollen could be from any red tomato(since the epidermis is yellow), even from a neighbors garden. I look forward to seeing what F2 plants I get.
As always, I enjoy reading your posts, on the various tomato message boards. Enjoy the last few matches of the French Open.

It is not my place to speak for Tom Wagner but I suspect the video needs some context, specifically for those growing out lots of the same plant type for selection of a specific trait. He has selected his single fruit from among hundreds of plants to find the one with specific traits. Bagging hundreds of plants isn't practical when you are looking for the one among many. Nor is isolation. As such, I am guessing he has deduced alternative means as detailed in the video. Thanks for the link as I am a big fan of TW and don't recall seeing this one. Had't heard of the various fruit observation techniques for minimizing likelihood of X pollination without isolation.

Tom Wagner does single line seed saving which is quite different from the rest of us and he also uses TSP, which is very caustic and I don't reccommend it for us home growers. he also saves seed from unripe fruits and can do that b'c he is using TSP. TOm is a tomato breeder and so uses methods that many of us wouldn't.

******

IS what I posted above re your comment about Tom and single fruit seed lines.

I've known Tom since about 1990 and have trialed some varieties for him back in the 90's and we've been through a lot together but no sense posting that here.

He's no doubt ticked off at me right now, not b'c of something I said here, but something I'm doing with some of his varieties, but I'm a big girl and can take it. LOL

And yes I've met him. I'd been asked to do a weekend heirloom presentation at a nursery in Pasadena, he was living in Bakersfield at the time and drove down and sat next to me at a table where I was dispensing variety advice, etc,. and then we went out for dinner together.

Carolyn