Open-Pollinated, Self-Pollinated,
Heirloom, Hybrid??
I’m Confused!
To
understand these terms you need to go back to your high school biology class. Plants
are all about making seeds. You could even say that their only goal in life is
to reproduce. Sure those lovely flowers are nice to look at, but they are just
traps for unsuspecting pollinators to spread pollen. Below is a picture of a
flower.
Transfer
of pollen from the stamen to the pistil leads to fertilization and the making
of seeds inside an ovary. Pollen is
transferred by wind, insects, birds, mammals and humans.
In
people, children get genetics from mom and dad and have traits of each parent
but will end up their own unique person. Seeds get genetics from their parent
plants and will end up with a blend of inherited characteristics.
Some
plants do things a little differently. Some plants keep all their male parts
and female parts together in one flower. These plants are called bisexual or
perfect. Some plants grow flowers that are all male or all female, and some
plants grow both male and female flowers. If a flower is only functionally male
or female it is called unisexual, imperfect or incomplete.
So
now that your memory has been refreshed on basic plant biology, these terms
will make more sense.
Open-Pollinated and
Self-pollinated
– Open-pollinated plants are pollinated by wind, insects, or gardeners to set
fruit and make seeds. Self-pollinated plants do not need wind, insects or
gardeners to pollinate their flowers as they have what is called ‘perfect’
flowers. ‘Perfect’ flowers contain both the stigma and pollen on the same
flower and sometimes are pollinated just by the act of the flower opening. Frequently the term open-pollinated refers to
both self and open pollinated plants.
Open-pollinated
plants have stable genetics and come true from seed. This means that if you
have a 'Big Orange’ squash plant, and you've ensured that there was no
cross-pollination with other plants in your garden or pollen from your neighbor
didn’t sneak in; the resulting seeds
that you save from the crop you grow this year will produce 'Big Orange' squash
plants, and not something else.
Cross-pollination
can occur with both self and open pollinated plants, but only with plants in
the same family. For example, if a bee visits a tomato plant flower then goes
to a squash plant flower, you will not get ‘tomquash’ or a ‘squatom’ seeds from
the fruit. But if your roaming bee visits a summer squash and then checks out an
acorn squash those fruit may very well produce seeds that grow a strange fruit (which
may or may not be edible) that you could call a ‘sumacorn’ or maybe a ‘acornmer’.
Or perhaps those seeds will not set any fruit at all (sterile).
Self-pollinated
plants are what we consider ‘easy’ to save seeds as the chance of cross-pollination
is small. True open-pollinated plants are what we consider ‘medium’ or
‘difficult’ to save seeds because you need to make sure the plants are not
cross-pollinated with other varieties.
Seed
packets may say ‘open-pollinated’ or ‘OP’ or nothing at all on the seed packet.
If nothing is specified, this is where you have to do a bit of sleuthing to
find out whether a particular variety is open pollinated or hybrid. The
internet is a wonderful resource for this.
Heirloom – are simply
open-pollinated varieties that have been around for many years, usually at
least 50 years or more. Think of them as the old standbys that usually produce consistent
fruit every time you plant those seeds. Usually, seed packets will have the
word ‘heirloom’ on the packet.
Hybrid – A hybrid plant is
one that is bred from two different types of plants and is a result of a
controlled breeding process. This is developed through a series of crosses
where the parent plants impart the offspring with desirable traits. This
process can be very involved and take many years. The result can be plants that
have higher yields or are more resistant to disease. But the drawback to these
plants from a seed saving perspective is that the genetics of hybrids is
unstable and the seeds from these plants do not usually breed true.
We
do have donated hybrid seeds in our seed library. They will grow great plants
and produce, but please do not save the seeds from these plants. Seed packets
may say ‘hybrid’ or ‘F1’ or not specify anything if they are hybrid seeds. Again,
if nothing is specified, this is where you have to do a bit of sleuthing.
GMO – stands for
Genetically Modified Organism. GMOs should not be confused with hybrid plants.
GMOs have their genetic traits modified in a laboratory where specific genes
are either added or deleted from a plant’s DNA. This is a very expensive
process and at this time only commercial crops such as corn, soybeans, sugar
beets and cotton are modified. At this time there are no GMO seeds available for gardeners. So though a seed company or a seed packet may
say not GMO, right now it doesn’t really mean much as all packets of seeds
available to us common folk are not GMOs.
So in summary, the
Seed Library wants open-pollinated, heirloom or self-pollinated seeds that have
not been cross-pollinated with another variety. Seeds from tomatoes, beans,
peas, lettuce and native plants are what we call ‘easy’ to save seeds.
Cross-pollination
That
being said, there are many types of vegetables and flowers that are
open-pollinated, but are easy to be cross-pollinated. For example, all melons are
in the Cucurbita family, so squash, pumpkins, melons, and zucchini will cross
with each other. Isolate by 800 ft – ½
mile. Also, anything in the Brassica family – broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbages,
cauliflower, kale, collards, and turnips all cross within each other and are
insect pollinated. Separate by 800 ft – ½ mile. Corn is pollinated by wind and
must be at least ½ mile away from any other corn. Onions are insect pollinated
so separate by about a mile. Even some flowers will cross-pollinate with
vegetables as carrots will cross-pollinated with Queen Ann’s lace flowers.
The
Seed Library encourages you to only save seeds from non-hybrid tomatoes, beans,
peas, lettuce and native plants as these seeds generally come true to
seed. Advanced seed savers may want to
try saving seed from the other types of plants using appropriate isolation distances
or other methods to ensure no cross-pollination.
And,
of course, you can purposely cross-pollinate varieties to come up with your own
new plants!
