I just found out that the Mandarin and Golden Summer sweet peppers I grew this year are hybrids. I saved the seeds. If I plant them in the spring, is there any chance that any of them will bear true or will they all revert to the crosses that created them?
Question
A percentage of them will be true. Depending on what was used to create them, You may not see any noticeable difference. Many of the Newer hybrids are created from in bred lines. If the parents were significantly different established cultivars than more than half will revert to those parents and you will notice the diference. It is not as simple as the Punnett squares you learned in high school biology, but the idea is the same.
http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001476.shtml
http://www.changbioscience.com/genetics/punnett.html
http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/CURR/Science/sciber00/7th/genetics/sciber/punnett.htm
This message was edited Oct 20, 2008 7:06 PM
I am going to plant them and see what I get. If I save seeds from the ones that grow true, will there be a better than average chance that the longer I keep growing them, the truer they will stay?
If you grow them out and carefully select for 6 or 7 generations, you can get a stabilized OP. most of the modern "heirlooms"been developed this way. Dehybridized cultivars are never the exact same as the hybrids, but often you can develop a good cultivar.
Thankyou for that info. I will be careful to watch them closely and save the seeds that bear true. Also, should I plant them in several different locations with a bit of distance between them or will it make a difference?