Many vegetable seeds are classified as hybrid, and there are caveats that hybrid seeds should not be saved for planting the following year, since the new crop will not be true. My question is: How are these seeds offered year after year. For example. I plant Cross Country Cucumber, which is classified as a hybrid. Where and how do the sellers produce the seeds continually.
The procedure will vary depending on the plant, but basically the hybridizer has to cross the two parent varieties each year. Care has to be taken to insure that pollination does not occur by chance. Where plants have separate male and female flowers, this process is not too difficult, but for many plants both male and female parts form on the same flowers. In these cases, the stamens have to be clipped on one of the parent varieties to prevent self pollination. This tedious work is why hybrid seed costs more. Here is a tutorial showing how it is done with tomatoes: http://www.avrdc.org/LC/tomato/hybrid/01title.html
Thank you Eric. Most informative. I didn't know this hybrid seed production was such a large industry. The tomato example was excellent. Hybrid seeds put the growers at the mercy of the hybrid seed producers to a large degree. I notice with corn, there are almost no or few listings for non-hybrid seeds.
