I should imagine that the majority of the member/enthusiasts here, have grown over a hundred varieties of heirlooms in the past three or four years-no problem, and managed to save seed from all of them- which is viable for at least five to ten years.

Some of them are known to have grown two or three hundred varieties in a single season as easy as pie, it all depends on how you set your stall out to begin with.

But you have to have one endearing quality in order to do so- become a dedicated enthusiast .

I was out on one web site that claimed to have 100 varieties of tomatoes I believe all grown by them.
Now, is this possible. Without land the size of Manhattan?
Is there ANY way to grow THAT many heirlooms and maintain seed purity without spending every waking moment bagging? Are they feeding me bull?

*****

let's take Sandhill Preservation as an example. They usually list over 400 tomato varieties in their catalog/website and no seed sold is over two years old, which is remarkable, and they're also one of the top companies for seed purity. They use geographic isolation not bagging.

And I'm just one of many who used to grow 500 to 1000 plants per year with up to 250-300 varieties/year and saved seed for most of them b;c at that time I listed hundreds of varieties in the SSE Yearbooks. And I too used geographic isolation not bagging.

And that while I was working full time except I didn't have to work in the summer. And yes I had my own 1/4 acre field at the old farm that was all mine, all mine. LOL

For medical reasons I can no longer do that.

And there are a few other seed sites where they produce almost all their own seed Marianne Jones being another one who does so.

Carolyn

How is geographic isolation possible without lots of acreage.
Can't bees carry pollen hundreds of feet. I'm not planning on growing more than 4 varieties, I'm just really curious. You say it is done, but can anyone explain how (if it's not too complicated)? I'm just not understanding.

btw, I went to Sandhill Preservation website, but I couldn't see prices.
Thanks. Dave

I believe I found the answer
Thanks

Here is a link that might be useful: Cross Pollination

Tomatoes are self pollinated but I still plant tall and wide barrier plants between them--I do intercroppng because I can't waste the space. Some of the plants I do interspace are Amaranths, millet, ornamental maize, yellow hibiscus, canna, etc; they're all tall and thickly planted to cut down on wind drift of any possible pollen. Also, throughout the entire garden is a smorgasbord of flowering plants which are extremely attractive to pollinators.

An excellent list of bee attracting plants is located at the BeeLab of Ohio State, I will paste in the link. Attracting pollinators away from your tomatoes will furter reduce the already low possibility of cross-pollination.

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Honey BeeLab Garden

I believe I found the answer
Thanks

**** Dave, the answer to how to prevent cross pollination is right here at GW in this Forum.

Go to the top of this first page, click on the FAQ section and scroll down to the FAQ titled; How To Prevent Cross Pollination.

There were many tomato experts who contributed to that FAQ and Paul did a fine job with the pictures that illustrate so many things.

The minute I clicked on your link I saw it was a message site and your name was first and I know from experience that the answers will be all over the lot, so I didn';t continue. PLease don't get upset about that for I'm an old lady who has just about seen it all re tomatoes. LOL

I also didn't see yopur ealier post today and that's easily answered but one has to define the distance needed for geographic isolation.

I highly suggest you go to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and look for the article written by Dr. Jeff McCormack who used to own that site. And there you'll read about all the variables that come in to the X pollination problem.

Cutting to the chase, I think Jeff's suggested distances are too far and have used much shorter distances with excellent luck. Almost every site I know of suggests different distances so there is no one distance and perhaps the following explaines why. My rows were about 250 ft long, plants in a row 3-4 ft apart and the distance between rows was 5 ft;

My X pollination rate was about 5% which means out of seed saved from 100 varieties, on average about 5 varieties will be X pollinated.

But if you read more about X pollination you'll see that self pollination of the blossom is the rule and it's self pollinated before the blossom even opens up wide.

So it doesn't matter how far a bee will fly. And you'll also find that it's not bumble bees or honey bees that do most X pollination, it's sweat bees, also called Halictid bees and they are so tiny it's hard to see them.

Each person has to find out what their X pollination rate is b'c the variables discussed in the SESE article will be different for each person.

Carolyn

I've toyed with the idea of starting my own tomato seed company in the future. And I agree that bagging the whole plant using spun polyester row covers is the answer, not isolation. I would go with high tunnels using the lightest weight spun polyester cover. In that way you could grow a 1000 varieties for seed in less than a half an acre.

Wow, didn't mean to start a flame throwing contest.
Carolyn, thanks for your input. I just thought that maybe it was such a noobie question, that noone wanted to answer it. So I asked it over on another forum. I really believe the answer given was very fair and acceptable and it DID answer my question. It wasn't a "my way or the highway" kind of response.
I also appreciate your answer though.

btw, I didn't know about the FAQ. This site is so confusing with all the pop-ups and flash garbage going on, it's a wonder anybody can find stuff.

You people are great! Thanks
Dave