Question: I have German Giant seedlings that I saved from last year. I had 5 different heirlooms with about three feet or less between plants. Is it possible that the German Giant seedlings will have characteristics from the other plants? I had purple calabash, cherokee purple, Gold Medal, Old German, Orange Russian 117, and Green Zebra.

It's definitely possible that with only 3 feet separation they would have crossed with each other. If I'm looking to save pure seed I separate my varieties by at least 20 feet.

Tomato flower is a perfect bloom (meaning) it doesn't have to be fertilised by other tomato pollen.

Depending on who's talking you have a 5 to 20% chance for a bee breaking in and pollinating for (or in spite of) you.

From the names, fruit color would tell you whether a purple crossed with an orange, or a green. Unless the color was dominant. And you would have to wait until they were ripe to know.

If you recall the type of leaf on each plant, that would give you a hint sooner.

P.S. To make sure that no bees break in and cross-pollinate your seed crop next year, you could bag a few branches of each variety, and only save seeds from fruit on those branches. Fabric stores have plenty of light fabrics or fine meshes.

Once you had enough green tomatoes set on those branches, you could even remove the bag (and just pluck any more flowers that came out on them). If you have a long season, you might be able to re-use the bag on a second variety. Pick any green fruit and flowers before bagging.

One way to reduce cross-pollination is to plant something attractive to bees, with lots of flowers and nectar, between and around tomato plants. It gives them better targets than the tomato flowers, and rubs some pollen off if they hit the trap blooms between tomato #1 and tomato #2..

I don't know if you saw this thread or not, Anderwood, where there is some interesting discussion with various ideas to insure that heirloom tomato seeds remain pure. The thread "Growing heirloom tomatoes & saving seeds" in Heirlooms forum

Thanks everyone. It would be fun to see if I did get a cross, ands get a new tomato to me.

My tomato plants are rather close together also. I see bees pollinating my tomatoes frequently so I would never have any confidence in the seeds unless I bagged. In fact I plan on trying that method this summer.

My tomato plants are close together this year.

I believe I've read that potato-leaf varieties are more prone to cross pollinating, as well.

I've replanted seeds that I've saved from plants that were pretty closely spaced, though, without any obvious sign that they had crossed.

Weedwhacker said:I believe I've read that potato-leaf varieties are more prone to cross pollinating, as well.

I've replanted seeds that I've saved from plants that were pretty closely spaced, though, without any obvious sign that they had crossed.

I have lots of honeybees on my plants. I just know they cross pollinate!!

I've read that the amount of cross-pollination depends both on the variety, and how many AGGRESSIVE pollinators you have.

I recall that Joseph sought and found a variety that was very prone to cross-pollination, like it tended NOT to pollinate itself thoroughly before opening. He put a lot of those "promiscuous" genes into his crop so that the offspring would also cross more freely, to advance his "landrace" policy.

The variety had a funny name, with some numbers and single letters in it, if I recall.

I enjoy the variety and nature's promiscuity.

I would not want any of "nature's promiscuity" when I am seed saving tomato seed for next year.

Right Rita.

Reid, how is your cross pollination going, anything interesting?

So far my tomato efforts have been focused on growing specific heirloom varieties, so I try to keep from crossing for the reason Rita said - saving seeds. But, my ultimate goal is to find the best tomatoes that will grow in my little micro climate. It would be nice to find some favorites that I can grow every year. I'm open to learning from Joseph and growing my own "Landrace" variety some day.

Here's a great article about Joseph and his experience with Landrace crops. http://cubits.org/WhosWhoSpotl...

Here's an article he wrote about seed saving. http://garden.org/ideas/view/j...

Thanks for that Cubits link, Christine! I've been trading seeds with Joseph for around 5 yearss, but I learned a lot about him from that article.