# Are Hybrid Seeds Good For Any Sort Of Storage?



## neil-v1 (Jan 22, 2010)

Hey, I was at Family Dollar Store the other day and they had packets of veg seeds that were two for a dollar. I am very new to seeds, but I do not think they were open pollinated or heirloom seeds. My question is would it be worth my time to buy them anyway just to vacuum seal them for storage for possible future use? Any help would be great. Thanks.


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## gypsysue (Mar 27, 2010)

Depends what other seeds you have stored. If you don't have any stored and can afford to spend a few dollars, why not store some anyway? Even if you only have hybrids, that gives you one season to grow stuff while you find other gardeners who have open-pollinated or heirloom seed. Then you just have to find something to trade them, to get some of that seed!

In the meanwhile, for the transition, you bought yourself another year of food. 

Keep in mind, it takes a lot of "garden" to feed even one person for a year.


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## neil-v1 (Jan 22, 2010)

Thank you Sue. You are always a big help.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

I have both. You can never have too many seeds stashed away.


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## lanahi (Jun 22, 2009)

Usually, if it does not say hybrid, it isn't. Hybrids usually are more expensive because someone spent years and lots of money to develop them and then patent the new variety. Heirlooms cannot be patented unless they are substantially changed from the original, but "heirlooms" can be expensive too just because they are called "heirlooms"! The seeds at the dollar store are probably just generic nonhybrids and just as good. Buy them all at that price!

Remember that older seeds have less germination, but you can save them for a few years. After 5 years you will probably get little germination with most vegetables no matter how they are saved. If you rotate some of those seeds by planting a few of them each year and saving the seeds, you keep them viable. I always buy more than what I can use and share or trade them with the neighbors.

I also spend hours online at a seed company like Burpees, Guerneys, Park, etc, to see which varieties would work best for me. That's why I end up with far more than I could use...there are so many I'd like to try! There are so many factors to consider besides what grows best in your area, like early or late varieties, days to maturity, pole or bush varieties, space saving plants, sun or shade, whether a variety is heat tolerant or not, etc., etc. It's just fun to come up with a "wish list" and then having to pare it down to what I can actually buy!

HEIRLOOM SEEDS - over 1300 varieties of non-hybrid seeds including heirloom vegetable seeds, heirloom flower seeds and heirloom herb seeds. is another site I like.


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## lanahi (Jun 22, 2009)

UncleJoe said:


> I have both. You can never have too many seeds stashed away.


That's a fact!


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## BuggingIn (May 31, 2010)

Don't forget, too, that most hybrids are crosses of 2 good parent plants. So, you won't get the same thing from saved seeds like you would from open-pollinated seeds, but you WILL get food. You may get some funky looking produce, and some that resembles either parent plant. If you experiment now, in a few more years, you may develop plants that are stable, basically reverting them to open pollinated plants, that will be the best suited to growing in your particular area. 

I would not hesitate to store hybid seeds - in fact, I do. I also store plenty of OP seeds, of course. The main threat of growing both at the same time would be possible contamination of the OP seed. With some careful isolation, it is still possible to have hybrids growing and keep your OP seed pure. 

Oh, and one other thing to consider is that if you are growing hybrid corn, you need to study up on which types of corn will cross and cause your corn THIS year taste bad, as well as causing your corn seed to mutate further. Some of the super-sweets are hard to grow with other corn, such as popcorn, as they can be cross-pollinated by wind and bees up to a 1/4 mile away. You can try to plant them to mature at different times, but sometimes you end up with everything getting ripe at the same time, even if you planted them a month apart.


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