Any suggestions on using heirloom tomato seeds the same season as the fruit was harvested?

Dirt

What difference would it make?
If the seeds are dry and viable, and the weather allows, you can plant them anytime.

Unless: Are you implying that the "mother" plant is still around and producing, and therefore there is some remote possibility of "inbreeding"?
It doesn't really happen with tomatoes, because they mostly self-pollinate.

Sorry, not very clear in my question. I don't save seeds. Clean and dry for a couple days and good to plant?

Dirt

Okay, nothing on the search, right? I can't find any of my old Sept./ Oct. magazines :_| .

The following is from a 1999 site called "Karen's Garden"



Some tomatoes are hybrids, that is, plants whose parents are from different varieties. These will not breed true from seed, but they are still fun to grow to see how the resultant plants differ.

Other tomatoes, including most heirloom varieties, are purebreds. These will breed true from seed except in rare instances, because tomatoes are among the plants classified as self-pollinators; that is, their blossoms are rarely contaminated by pollen from nearby plants. Hybrid tomatoes are artificially pollinated for commercial seed production.

Hybrids include Better Boy, Carmello, Celebrity, Dona, Early Girl, and the variations of the Supersweet cherry tomato. Purebreds include Ace, Bradley Pink, Brandywine, and Oregon Spring.

Saving tomato seeds is a little more complicated than saving most other seeds, because tomato seeds have a gelatinous coating that will inhibit germination if the coating isn't removed by the following ripening and semi-fermentation process.

First select a nice, ripe tomato, and leave it on the plant until it gets somewhat over ripe. Then pick it, put it in a wide mouthed jar, and add water to the jar to cover the tomato by several inches. Now set the jar aside in a shady area of the garden for a few days until the tomato softens and starts to fall apart. You can keep the jar in the house, of course, but it doesn't add much to the decor. Check the jar daily; the jar contents shouldn't actually start growing interesting other life forms.

Then shake the jar slightly so that the viable seeds, which are heavier than the pulp, fall to the bottom. Carefully pour off the top of the water and pulp (into the compost pile perhaps) without losing any seeds. Add more water to the jar, shake slightly, and pour off more of the tomato pulp and water. Repeat until you have just a little clear water and the seeds left.

Now spread out the seeds on a plate, separate the seeds, and let them dry. Stir the seeds around a little during the several day drying process so all sides of the seeds dry. Don't try to dry them on a paper towel instead of a plate, because they will stick to the paper.

Once the seeds are thoroughly dry, they can be stored in a cool, dry place. I keep mine in labeled envelopes, with the envelope tops folded over but unsealed .

Well, that's interesting. We just take seeds from a really ripe tomato and smear them around on a piece of wax paper, let them dry and put them in an envelope still stuck to the wax paper. Then plant them the next year. One year the seeds sat out on top of the kitchen cabinet all winter still on the wax paper but not in an envelope. We didn't get good germination that time. I'll have to try doing it right but it sounds like a lot of trouble. :^O

I need to read a seed saver's book and get serious if I'm going to give seeds away next year.

Saving tomato seeds is very easy.
I squeeze a couple of ripe tomatoes to collect seeds and juice in a plastic cup, don't add water, and let the stuff ferment for a few days (incidentally: If the seeds ferment for too long they will be dark, but still good). After that I add water to the cup and start the rinsing. The seeds that float are discarded, those which sink I keep. I dry them on a styrofoam plate in the shade for a week or so, then I label and save in little yellow paper envelopes.
From beginning to end I'd say it may take between two and three weeks.

Dirt Pit: If you have gone through the whole process, you may plant right away.

Has anyone ever used film canisters for storeing seed? I shoot a lot of film and work in a developing lab so I can get a lot of them.

I was told that film canisters are not recommended because of a chemical used to preserve films. Apparently it leaches into the canister, creating a source of contamination for the seeds.

gardpro,

please elabrate on plant inbreeding. I have never heard about it and would like some info.

I have used them, as well as canisters someone saves for me from her diabetic test strips, and have never had any problems with seed germination.

Dave

Captain Dirt, this is a short article by catgardens (she is a biologist):

"The Biology Behind the Techniques

1. Seed is created when the male pollen (sperm), from the flower's stamen, connects with the female stigma (ovary) of a flower. Some flowers have both pollen and stigma, and can self pollinate. These self pollinators are called 'perfect' flowers. Most beans and peas have perfect flowers. When a plant has male and female flowers on it, and can transfer pollen to the stigma via wind, insects, etc., it is called a cross-pollinator. These types of plant flowers are much more common.

2. Cross pollinators can share pollen and stigma from plant to plant in the area. Some can cross themselves with only pollen coming from the exact same plant kind as the stigma, some can cross with any member of the same plant family. Seed resulting from a cross between two related plants will result in usually an un-usable new breed, like a mix of squash and gourds will not have either the edible qualities of the squash, or the usefulness of a gourd. Some crosses will not produce viable (living) seed at all. Still others have the potential to produce a new, delightful strain.

3. The cross-pollination between two open-pollinated plants (heirlooms are all o/p's), usually results in a hybrid variety. Hybrids will not make themselves anew in harvested seed. The hybrid will produce seed that will not look, act, or taste like itself, even if it cross pollinates with exactly the same kind of plant. Generally it will revert back to it's parent plants, or not set viable seed at all.

4. Seed marked F1, F2, Hybrid, are all results from a cross pollination. Seed Companies, to make more of these every year, must go back to the parents year after year, to create the hybrid. F2's are a four-parent cross. F1's involve just two o/p parents.

5. Seed creation that results in a fertile plant that can breed true the following season is called 'open-pollinated'. Open-pollinators with a history of breeding itself the exact same way for fifty years are given the title of 'heirloom'.

6. Nearly 95% of all supermarket produce, florist shop finds are hybrids. Therefore, to collect and sow seed from these will not give you the same at all. There are exceptions, of course, but without the 'name' of a particular eggplant at your local grocery store, it is impossible to know which are viable seed holders and which are not.

So. How does a gardener keep an open-pollinated variety the exact same from year to year, when the plant is quite capable with mating and producing offspring with any other pollen from it's class or type? It is the same way breeders continue a purebred animal. On purpose."

I'd like to add that "inbreeding" is a trait that all tomato plants display, and which should not be cause for concern.
Tomatoes really hardly ever cross, and if you plant a variety that is supposed to produce red tomatoes and end up with striped tomatoes instead, that most likely happened because of spontaneous mutation rather than cross-pollination.

I hope this answers your question.