Tomatoes don't cross as easily as you think, but I don't think they used to just let them cross. they may have bagged them or planted them seperately.
I grow some in the front yard, some in the back.
I would think veggie seeds were pretty important to the growers then. Especially those who could not afford to buy all their food.

If you plant brandywine and paste you'll get brandywine and paste. Tomatoes are self-fertile and it often requires extra effort to actually cross varieties. They are not as easily crossed as say, corn.

The average gardener hundreds of years ago did not have easy access to so many different varieties of seed.

Many heirlooms are from totally different parts of the world where the natural pollinators did not travel with the seeds.

A ten foot distance is recommended if you are saving seed for the future and wish to keep your varieties pure.

Don't you think most open pollinated (heirloom) plants are indeed crosses? Maybe that's why there are over 5,500 varieties of tomatoes.

:)

You won't see the results of a cross the first year. It won't be until you plant the seeds the following year.

Tomatoes are indeed self-pollinating... and the majority of varieties are unlikely to cross, or cross very seldom. This is especially true if given the minimum isolation distance suggested by Violet (though I would recommend more if possible), if barrier crops are used, or if better pollen sources (flowers) are planted between the rows of different tomatoes.

However, some tomatoes are very prone to crossing:
(1) Potato-leaf varieties
(2) Currant tomatoes
(3) Double blossoms of large tomatoes (usually some of the first of the season)
(4) Varieties whose blossoms have a protruding style/stigma

Brandywine is a potato-leaf variety, so if planted near other tomatoes, crosses are fairly likely in the saved seed. However, if planted with the paste tomato as in the original post, you should only have to blossom-bag the Brandywine to get pure seed from both. Personally, I have not yet tested that theory... I grow my potato-leaf varieties in isolation.

Several regular-leaf tomatoes planted together would be less likely (but not impossible) to cross.

Because I am a seed saver, I grow a lot of tomato varieties each year from seed swaps. Crossing has been fairly common in larger tomatoes (even regular-leaf); I would estimate that 40-50% of my large tomatoes grown from swapped seed had anywhere from 10-50% crossing. So for the larger beefsteak & oxheart tomatoes, it is apparent that greater isolation is required - at the very least, that they not be grown side-by-side. Either that, or too many people are saving seed from double-blossom tomatoes.

Paste tomatoes, on the other hand, have had very few crosses - none in most cases. They appear to be very safe for the home seed saver.

Conventional seed saving wisdom is to save seed from the largest fruits & healthiest plants. Unfortunately, the largest tomato on the plant may be from a double blossom, which is more likely to contain crosses.

You want to save seed from the _plants_ with the most & largest fruit, but use the medium-sized tomatoes from that plant for seed saving, those free of deformity. I use the first few of these from each plant, since the earliest fruits have the seeds with the greatest vigor.

Likewise, the healthiest tomato seedling grown from saved seed _may_ be a cross, due to "hybrid vigor"... so if selecting for the strongest seedlings, you might actually be selecting the crosses! Instead, look at all the plants of that variety; abnormally strong seedlings should be destroyed, or if you are curious, plant them in a separate location.

Wow, very informative post, zeedman. This is an experimental year for me in a new place, and I had hoped I could save seed from at least the tomatoes I liked since everything else is going to cross like crazy. It sounds like I may get a mish-mash instead; I though tomatoes were pretty safe from cross pollination.

(With luck, a couple of other things I am going to attempt to separate by time, like the corn.)

Anyone know if tomatillos and tomatoes will cross?

Tomatillos are actually in in the gooseberry family. They will not cross with tomatoes.

Ah, excellent. Thank you. I have no gooseberries around, but had thought of trying currants even though it's too hot here for them. I guess that plan is out of I want to save tomatillo seeds.

I didn't know that, Zeedman! Just assumed that my tomatoes wouldn't cross. Hmmmm . . . May make sense to always grow more than just 1 or 2 or each variety and to be sure to save seed from a couple of plants. That way, if there was a cross, all your "eggs" wouldn't be in one basket.

Grandma might have been thinking this way. And, in many places (my ancestors always seemed to be right on the frontier) too little room for the tomatoes wouldn't have been a problem. Big family, big garden - lots of tomato plants.

Thank you for sharing!

Steve

"Tomatillos are actually in in the gooseberry family."

I must respectfully disagree... although I can understand the source of the confusion. There are several species of tomatillo, and one of them is called "Cape Gooseberry".

Tomatillos and ground cherries are in the genus Physalis, family Solanaceae - the same family as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and potatoes. The tomatillo most often sold in stores is P. philadelphica (formerly P. ixocarpa) and will not cross with tomatoes, other species of tomatillo (such as purple tomatillo, P. longifolia var. subglabrata) and ground cherries.

Yes, I should have been more specific, they are "related", all in the nightshade family.

Plant them at opposite ends of the ranch and completely surround each separate type by 2 rows of sunflowers . Sunflowers provide a barrier to cross pollination . Also hand pollination would be practiced in the fruit used as seed crop to increase the chances of purebreds . This plus ridged culling would increase chances of purebreds .

"Grandma might have been thinking this way." (Digit)

Digit, I think that you may have hit on something here. We grow vegetables primarily for leisure. The vegetables we produce are not essential to our survival, so we place undue emphasis on aesthetic qualities such as appearance... and we grow fewer of them.

Our ancestors, on the other hand, had a much closer relationship with the vegetables that they grew... no vegetables = no food. With survival at stake, they would have learned many techniques to grow and preserve their vegetables... and to save seed successfully. Their plantings were large scale, with greater emphasis on productivity - the precursor to modern agriculture.

However, they may not have segregated their varieties to the extent that we do today. After all, they were less concerned about the shape & color (and even flavor) of what they grew, than they were of the other traits - earliness, drought hardiness, yield, resistance to disease, and storage life / ease of preservation. They might have only grown one "tried and true" variety of many vegetables, or they might have grown a mixture (with or without segregation). A great deal of amateur breeding took place, gradually incorporating desired traits into family lines... hence, heirlooms.

As experienced farmers, they would have selected for seed the plants that possessed the traits they desired; so they were keen observers, who knew what to watch for. That knowledge would have been passed down, along with other survival lore such as hunting & trapping, animal husbandry, tanning, drying meat, etc.

Sadly, with the dawning of the industrial age, that unbroken line of knowledge was severed. We may have a world of information at our collective fingertips... but for the population at large, much of the knowledge of self-sufficiency is now beyond reach, forgotten. We are the weaker for it, were our technology to ever fail us.

Farmfreedom, if only we all had a ranch. (smile)

Sunflowers are an effective barrier crop, provided that you have the space to grow them, and that they are planted such as to avoid shading other crops.

Hand-pollination is a good technique for saving seed, especially if multiple varieties are grown, or in an urban setting where you don't know what your neighbors are growing. It is useful for out-crossing species, those that require wind or pollinators to produce seed. However, it is inappropriate for self-pollinating vegetables like beans & tomatoes; caging or blossom-bagging is best for them.

Farmfreedom, I am unfamiliar with "ridged culling"; could you describe the technique in greater detail?

Thanks for all the knowledge everyone! I am going to go find some extra tomato seed and see if I can't yet get some paste tomatoes! I might even learn to bag a blossom. Come that time, I just may be asking a question or two.

Thanks again,

Ali

OK, another question, please? What are your bags to be made of? like nylons? or like a spice bag? and dont you only have to leave on till the tomato starts forming?

The bags need to be made of a material that will exclude insects, but still allow air flow. The best material is spun-polyester row cover, formed into a bag, and tied gently around the flower cluster. Be sure the bag is completely closed off at the stem end.

The bag(s) should remain in place until the last flower of the cluster has closed. If removed sooner, snip off all remaining open flowers & buds. You could also tie a string around the stem of the fruit to be saved, but birds love to steal string... which could leave you unable to find the seed fruit come harvest time.