What is the difference between heritage and hybrid seeds? And which should you sow on your plot?
When it comes to deciding on vegetable seeds, there is an awful lot of choice out there. This isn’t just a simple case of picking the type you’d like to grow and going for a variety that appeals to you – seeds are also split into two categories, open pollinated and hybrid.
Open pollinated seeds are those that have been pollinated in a natural way. In the case of heritage seeds, this can have been over many, many years. This means that when these plants set seed, these are ideal to save and sow again in following seasons – it is almost like preserving a little piece of your own garden history. Seeds libraries (such as Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library) are making sure that many of the older varieties are not lost as time goes past, and play an instrumental part in reintroducing types that may have been on the verge of extinction.
Hybrids on the other hand (F1 seeds as they are otherwise known) are specifically bred from two parent plants chosen for desirable characteristics (such as early ripening, large yields, resistance to disease, etc). These are recommended to be sowed each year from newly bought seeds, as saving seeds from these types can have unexpected results.
It is likely that you will still get a crop, however, the seed may show any characteristics from either parent plant, meaning it is unlikely
