It makes sense, it just feels a little funny to me. When I think of seed-saving I automatically think of record-keeping just because that's what my dad did. But he is also pretty into selection and specific crosses, aimed at getting particular attributes (or backcrossing them from one variety to another).
This gets particularly complicated for plants where you normally eat the seeds. So maybe you grow some plants from generation 1 seeds and perform crosses, save those generation 2 seeds, plant *some* of the gen 2 seeds, evaluate the plants and their fruits and seeds, then go back to your saved gen 2 seeds and plant just the ones whose grown-out siblings did well. Cross those, etc. Complicated! (And I don't know the name for it. Maybe you do?) You could do selection without tracking multiple years' worth of seeds, but apparently it's a lot slower.
I think the only time this technique is actually *required* is when you're making unstable, uniform hybrids, which he's not into and neither am I. My hazy memory is that he has instead done it for an heirloom variety that had gotten very polluted with off-types and that he was trying to shape up again.
I think record-keeping just appeals to me, too. I like the idea of being able to trace the ancestry of a variety. :-) I'm keeping track of all my citrus, and I plan to keep track of the lineages of any crosses I make.
But... the feeling of obligation that comes with the record-keeping is a minor source of stress, so if I can drop it then it might make some kinds of gardening more fun, which is good.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-03-01 03:04 am (UTC)This gets particularly complicated for plants where you normally eat the seeds. So maybe you grow some plants from generation 1 seeds and perform crosses, save those generation 2 seeds, plant *some* of the gen 2 seeds, evaluate the plants and their fruits and seeds, then go back to your saved gen 2 seeds and plant just the ones whose grown-out siblings did well. Cross those, etc. Complicated! (And I don't know the name for it. Maybe you do?) You could do selection without tracking multiple years' worth of seeds, but apparently it's a lot slower.
I think the only time this technique is actually *required* is when you're making unstable, uniform hybrids, which he's not into and neither am I. My hazy memory is that he has instead done it for an heirloom variety that had gotten very polluted with off-types and that he was trying to shape up again.
I think record-keeping just appeals to me, too. I like the idea of being able to trace the ancestry of a variety. :-) I'm keeping track of all my citrus, and I plan to keep track of the lineages of any crosses I make.
But... the feeling of obligation that comes with the record-keeping is a minor source of stress, so if I can drop it then it might make some kinds of gardening more fun, which is good.