Last year I raised one Better Boy tomato plant. I saved seeds and raised two plants this year. I know the plant last year may have cross-pollinated to result in the differences – and Better Boy is also an unstable hybrid. These 2026 plants are about 5 feet from each other and grew at the same rate. Plant A produces much more fruit, and faster. The tomatoes are round, blush yellow and are ripe at orange (although I can get a bright red if I leave them on the counter, but they're very soft by then). Plant B was slow to produce fruit, is making ribbed tomatoes that average up to 1.5 or 2x larger than most of Plant A's fruit, and blushed brownish before turning more brownish. I have yet to see changes counter-ripening because these tomatoes are just so slow. I picked them because we were having a lot of rain and they started to split but I wish I could have left them on the vine longer, although they do feel ripe to the touch. Plant B has a lot of cat-faced tomatoes, Plant A has none. Plant A tomatoes are sweeter, Plant B tastes vaguely "dirty" for lack of a better term but not overwhelmingly so. I have no one in my personal life who wants to hear THIS MUCH about tomatoes so I hope people find it interesting here!
by xenawarriorfrycook
16 Comments
The seeds from a hybrid will not necessarily create the same tomato plant. They revert back of the traits of the parent plants.
Talk to me- get it out. I am here for you.
this is a fun read!
It’s typical when you grow f2 seeds to grow a dozen or so plants and then pick your favorite as the genetics shake out and repeat that in f3, f4, etc to up f7 until you have something close to what traits you liked from the hybrid. With f7 you have something fairly stabilized.
We know one of the parents of Better Boy is an heirloom called Teddy Jones.
This is awesome. I am fascinated.
The exact same thing happened to me. Same tomatoes too.
Now I want to know what happens when you plant the seeds of those ones! That is so cool! Thanks for sharing.
This is why I do like planting a few tomatos from saved seeds. They become a mystery!
You are among your people!
The more purple one looks like a delicious heirloom!
You’ve inspired me to save seeds this year just to see what I get!
You are NOT the father!!!
F2 is the generation where you see the recessive genes come out. It’s the wildest of the filial generations.
You are witnessing filial segregation. I, unlike others in your personal life, love these stories. I think everyone should be a plant breeder or try to grow unstable seed in the hunt for a personalized variety at some point in their growing career
I tested saving seeds of Carmen peppers (also an F1 hybrid) for 5 years and they are a real shitshow lol. This is my last year saving seed form them. I won’t buy hybrid seeds for veggies I save seeds for anymore.
I did something similar with an F1 hybrid pepper plant last year. Can’t remember the name off hand.
Haven’t had any fruit ripen yet but the difference in growth habit it pretty interesting. I have five or six plant from these seeds and they’re all different sizes and habits; a couple aren’t producing many flowers but have really robust foliage and stalks. A couple are really compact and producing smaller and modest numbers of fruit along the main stalk but have had no BER; have one that’s going gangbusters size and fruit wise but have needed to pull a couple of fruit suffering with BER off. And I have one that’s the biggest. Producing slow and steady but no BER, fairly uniform fruit and very few blossoms dropping. I’ll save seeds from the latter.
It’s super fun if you’re not worried about maximizing every square inch of growing space and won’t be bothered if you grow a few plants that don’t yield much food. I enjoy the learning experience and the surprise factor and that’s worth the effort!
Will be saving tomato seeds from my open pollinated/heirloom tomatoes I grew from purchased seed this year. Even within these plants there is some variation. So the objective is to save seed from the plants that gave me the best results in my microclimate. Did they cross-pollinate? I let you know next year providing the seeds are viable, they germinate, they survive transplant and they persist through to fruiting hahah.
I’m orchestrating my own pepper gate for next year as well. Have four varieties; one pimento-type, the mystery F2 hybrids, an heirloom bell and some early jalapeños. I’m not isolating any flowers, and really hoping I end up with a bell-jalapeno Frankenstein lineage I can play with for a few years.
Plants are so cool.