I am a fairly knowledgeable hobby gardener but I just learned something new after reading through some posts in this forum....you can purchase named hybrid tomato F1 seeds. I just always assumed the F1 seeds could not be ordered by the general public and only by growers licensed to grow varieties like that. I wanted to give greenhouse tomato growing a try and assumed I'd have to go with heirloom varieties, (which I may also try) but I'd kinda' like to start with something I'm more familiar with like Better Boys now that I know that's an option.

My question is: Are all F1 seeds from these companies the same or is there anything I need to know or look for when ordering from them besides who has the cheapest price?? Are there any kinds of treatments or coatings on seeds from some places but not others or is that even a factor? In other words regardless of source, are all Better Boy F1 seeds created equal?

Thank you for any advice.
Danielle

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With that particular variety since it is well stabilized, likely so since the seeds from all the common hybrids are usually purchased by the reputable commercial suppliers from just a few grower sources and then re-sold to the public. Of course that would not be the case if you buy from individual sellers (IE: those on ebay, amazon, etc.) so you need to stick with reputable vendors.

But that is NOT true for all varieties. There are literally 100's of hybrid varieties where the quality all depends on the source of the seed.

You can find any number of discussions about reputable dealers and non-reputable seed dealers discussed on the Growing Tomatoes forum here. My personal preferences are tomatogrowers.com and tomatofest.com

Dave