Saving Improved Seed From Your Garden

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PHOTO: FOTOLIA/SIMA
Learn about saving improved seed from your garden to produce the best crops possible.

Home gardeners share how to identify the best seeds when saving improved seed from your garden.

Saving Improved Seed From Your Garden

Plants are far more variable than most of us realize. If you observe your garden crops closely, you will notice some plants are growing slightly better or maybe tasting better than others. Spotting these plants and saving their seeds can be really exciting.

Discovering a New Tomato

David Podoll of Prairie Road Organic Farm in Fullerton, North Dakota, had grown seeds of ‘Crimson Sprinter,’ a slicing tomato well-adapted to his short Northern Plains summers, for a number of years. Several years ago, he discovered a single, unusual fruit among his ‘Crimson Sprinter’ crop. It had “absolutely unblemished, shiny skin and an intense bright color that was more pink than red.” The fruit had excellent flavor, too, so Podoll saved seed from this plant and the next year, grew 10 plants from his cache. All turned out exactly like the original, so Podoll knew his new plant probably was a “sport” or mutant, and not a cross with another tomato variety in his garden. Sports are caused by a specific genetic change in just the right place in the plant’s DNA. “Discovering something like this is quite thrilling,” Podoll says.

  • Published on Oct 1, 2003
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