You are correct. Most folks just classify plants as open pollinated or hybrid. Usually that means an F1 ( first generation deliberately bred variety). When open pollinated varieties (vegetables) were used in commercial production, vendors offered "certified" seed which stressed grower standards which minimized the possibility of cross pollination.

Yes your friend is very wrong but hardly to blame when there is so much misinformation out there. Plus the term open pollinated itself is confusing. I prefer saying purebred or non-hybrid. Many people believe hybrids are sterile and the open pollinated varieties in their garden will save pure seed all on their own and look exactly the same next year. That doesn't even always happen with legumes! Hybrid vegetables are rarely sterile. And when you save seeds from your OP veggies they could be crossed by bees or wind for a very great distance and end up very different than what you think they will be.
Sometimes, with tomatoes especially, accidental crosses can be cool but a person saving seed, especially if they trade seed, should know the basics of how to save pure seed that will come true to type.
I am teaching a class on this next year. More people are starting to save their own seed.

It just all depends on how complex, how detailed, you want to make the distinction. All the terms have standardized botanical definitions.

The confusion arises when someone tries to read more into those definitions and/or create new terms or labels for them that are not standardized.

All open-pollinated varieties have both dominant and recessive genetic material just as with all DNA so cross-pollination issues with most of the common OP vegetables aren't nearly as pervasive as some would have you believe. Even so, it is relatively easy to prevent in most cases with hand pollination and/or bagging blooms for seed saving. There is a good FAQ here on how to do it.

Dave

"But no, they do not "hybridize" (in the stand definition of the term - selective manual intervention). They simply cross-pollinate to some degree."

The definition of hybrid has nothing to do with manual selective intervention. It has to do with species crosses.

Put a cucumber and a melon together and they will readily hybridize, with no intervention.

Nothing crosses natually with different species. Cucamelons belong in the same mythology as the Jackalope. Melons and cucumbers do not cross in nature. As far as I know not even in laboratories. Sakata has succeeded in crossing squash, C moschata with C.maxima but it requires complex intervention. Tetsukabuto is the most well known. Kitazawa sell the seeds in the USA,

The definition of hybrid has nothing to do with manual selective intervention. It has to do with species crosses.

In what context? You might want to look up the definition of "hybrid".

And as farmerdill already covered, cucumbers do not cross with melons.anymore than an eagle will cross with a buzzard to make a bugle.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Cross pollination between vine crops

Joppa is way off. Maybe if we are talking about hybrid animals like mules and ligers then a hybrid is a cross of two species but not so with plants. Hybrids are a cross of two cultivars of the same species. Melons and cucs can't cross and melons and watermelons can't cross.

The type of cultivar you are growing, whether it is hybrid or open pollinated, is all about what happened last year, not what is happening this year (except for corn). Hybrid cultivars have two different cultivars as parents and OP cultivars have one cultivar as the parent. To keep an OP pure/uncrossed to save seed is another ball game and each crop is different. All OP cultivars can cross with others of the species - up to 1/2 mile for cucurbits or very little crossing chance with legumes. To save pure seed you have to read about each veggie you are trying to save and you may have to look at what your neighbors are growing for some distance. Remember hybrids are not sterile generally and so they will get their genetic material mixed in there too if precautions for cross pollination are not taken.

If OP cultivars could not cross, as the friend of the OP believes, we would have no new varieties! Letting or purposely causing two OP varieties to cross is how we get new tomatoes, peas, beans, melons etc!

The term "Open Pollinated" in modern usage has now become so corrupt as a term that basically means "Highly Inbred". A meaning that is probably the exact opposite of what it originally meant. I personally don't use it. Instead i say "Highly Inbred" and/or "Self-pollinating".

A new term "Promiscuously Pollinated" is gaining momentum as an alternative description for high out-crossing and easily crossed by bees and native pollinators. And might also imply that it is a genetically diverse crop variety.

https://www.kitazawaseed.com/seed_393-187.html

Can't help but wonder what was wrong with the standardized terms and why people need to come up with new ones....

Rodney

I can't see equating "open pollinated" with "highly inbred". It, much less "promiscuously pollinated", sure not common usage in the industry. Stick with the standard defs.

Dave

There is some serious misinformation upthread about hybrids. There are MANY instances of plants hybridizing naturally across species. It is actually quite common. There are also numerous instances of intergeneric (cross genera) hybrids that have occurred naturally. Less common but it DOES happen.

Never say "never" when it comes to horticulture :-) You will be wrong!!

Hybrids can be either between different species, interspecific, or between different subspecies and cultivars of the same species, intraspecific. As Gardengal noted, even intergeneric cross happen. Hybrids can occur with or without human input. The biological definition is simply the offspring of different breeds, varieties, species, or genre and has nothing to do with whether that was brought about by bees, wind, or folks in a lab.

A ring species is where every 'pair' of neighbors intermixes freely or biologically 'equal' but the two 'ends' don't or are unable to so therefore (not) the same species.

Standard definitions are confusing and outdated. So no, they should not be used anymore in my opinion unless they are very clear and concise. Perhaps i phrased things badly before.

But, i really find it annoying that common usage of terms like "open pollinated" does not actually mean "openly pollinated by bees and freely crossing", but instead means "closed pollinated" and "closed to bees and tightly controlled pollination". As used by the industry.

We the people have the power to change usage of these words and so i think we should. We could use "closed pollinated" instead of open pollinated. Perhaps not all "open pollinated" varieties are highly inbred, but they are NOT openly pollinated by bees in a promiscuous manner as the industry used the term. It is always used to imply homogeneous traits. That was the point i was making. The literal meaning of that term in English is very confusing and far from concise or comprehensive. I wonder what these terms are in other languages, but at least in English they make no sense. You can disagree with me and i'm sure many will, but that is my opinion and i think it is an issue that needs to be talked about.

Open pollinated in general use has nothing to do with birds and bees. The cucurbita genus is very promiscuous and pollinated by insects. There are many open pollinated cultivars. Purity of course can only be maintained by isolation or bagging blossoms. Hybrid in general terms means a deliberate cross within species altho it could be applied to accidental/unplaned crosses. Usually these are just referred as mixed or cross pollinated variations meaning that they will not true varieties. In vegetables crossing between species to date is limited to C. moschata x C. maxima which is accomplished through a series of chemical actions. I am aware that there are inter species crosses in ornamentals. Have not looked at the mechanics of making these crosses, but I suspect elaborate human intervention. GMO might be an appropriate mechanism. Mules and ligers as examples of inter species crossing in animals is also done by human intervention. They are also sterile. Horses and donkeys in natural settings like the wild do not cross.

Open pollinated is contrasted with controlled pollinated. The point being that the variety is free from the manipulation of controlled breeding. It is 'open'. There is no proprietorship - or ownership - to neither the variety, nor its offspring. It is 'open' for growing without encumbrance of legal claim.

Sorry. Open pollinated vegetables as well as other groups are eligible for PVP (Plant Variety Protection) which gives the developer a number of years to recoup development costs and maybe make a profit. Most modern open pollinated commercial varieties will have this. You can save seed for your own use, but selling such seeds is a violation. Unlike hybrid vegetables which the developer can control by keeping the parentage a trade secret, PVP varieties have a time limit like a normal patent. At the end of the period, it becomes a public variety. https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/plant-variety-protection

Ahhh, thank you farmerdill. I took the explanation a bit too far. :-)

I think you get 20 years (maybe more for trees), and it takes some effort. You need to pay USDA a few thousand bucks, and submit a few hundred of your seeds. But yes, while the owner protects his or her product by keeping secret the recipe for hybrid varieties, for OP varieties, the seeds themselves know the recipe.

"I am aware that there are inter species crosses in ornamentals. Have not looked at the mechanics of making these crosses, but I suspect elaborate human intervention. GMO might be an appropriate mechanism. "

Some are entirely naturally occurring. But even most human derived hybrids require very little in the way of "elaborate intervention"........many plants will hybridize very freely on their own or with just the introduction of another species' pollen.

And genetic engineering to date has nothing to do with any ornamentals. It is even not very prolific on the vast majority of edible crops.......it costs millions to create a genetically engineered plant and the cost-benefit is just not there for most crops.

I think where we are getting our meanings crossed is whether we are talking from a scientific (including biology and botany) standpoint or a layman gardeners.

Coming from a biology background to me, hybrid means exactly what I said before. The offspring of different breeds, varieties, genre or species. This occurs naturally on a pretty regular basis without any input whatsoever from humans. It is a mechanism for evolution and adaptation and has been happening for longer than human beings have walked on the earth, let alone been domesticating and breeding plants for agriculture. Are all of these matings successful? No, many are dead ends resulting in weak, unviable, or sterile offspring. This is particularly in the case of animals. Plants have a much greater ability to hybridize successfully and some will even argue that hybidizing is the rule rather than the exception for many of them.*

On the other hand gardener, whether professional or hobbiest, may have a totally different opinion on these terms. A hybrid to them may mean only those cultivars that are purposefully bred between different parents by humans. The hybrid tomatoes you find in the Burpee or Johnny's catalogs if you will. While they reserve the term "cross" for the serendipitous breeding that takes place in the uncontrolled environment of their gardens.

So who is right? Well, neither is necessarily wrong, it just depends on the indeviduals background and understanding of these terms. Its much like the word "variety." You will hear many people use the word variety to descibe different tomatoes, however the techincal term is actually "cultivar." Variety is its own taxonomic rank below that of species and subspecies and a plant can be both a variety and a cultivar. Some horticulturalists get nitpicky, but I have to wonder if its really worth the energy to get your feaths ruffled when chanves are you know exactly what the person means.

Now that all being said I would have to disagree with unequivocally saying that the standard definition of a hybrid is ONLY the result of planned and purposeful breeding of two different species or cultivars and everything else is a "cross" or some other term. Technically the opposite is true. The standard definition as applied in science (which biology, botany, and horticultural all are) is the first one I gave. But again, as long as we all know what the heck we are talking about, thats really all that matters. We're literally just arguing semantics here.

*It is important to note that some taxonomists will say that the ability for two organisms to successfully hybidize is grounds for considering a change in classification. This is especially true for intergeneric hybrids. But its also important to note that taxonomists are constantly arguing between the "lumpers" who like to combine different species into one and the "splitters" who like to divide and make new species. Grab a couple dichotomous keys by two different authors and your pretty much guaranteed to find discrepancies between them.

I looked up some more info on my comment about open-pollinated as a term applying to proprietorship status. I see that the PVP didn't come into effect until 1970. The question becomes, when did the term 'open-pollinated' come to be in usage? If the term open-pollinated predates the PVP Act of 1970, then the term makes sense as differentiating a variety (or cultivar) from those that were protected under the 1930, or 1952 patent acts.