Do other seeds breed true to the mother plant just as Heirloom seeds?

I need someone to please explain this to me like I'm five...

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, I've embarked on the interesting but often daunting journey of creating a seed vault. Yay! Fun. What I did NOT realize was that not all seeds breed "true" (I'm not a beginning gardener, but I am new to the whole saving seeds thing).

As I understand it, if I want to be certain future plantings will always breed true to the mother plant, I know I will be safe if the label reads "heirloom."

But what if the specific descriptor "heirloom" is not on the label? What if the seeds are just labeled "organic?" Or "non-GMO?" Will the seeds I gather from the mother plant still breed true?

The definitions on this are all over the map, so I'm sure you can appreciate my confusion. Non-GMO is not necessarily organic. And while heirloom may be organic, organic aren't necessarily heirloom.

Hybrids(F1 normally) will not breed true.  The words you are looking for are Open Pollinated or OP.  Those will produce plants like themselves.  Recently there has been an increase in OP varieties available to the home gardener. While not heirlooms they can work better in some areas so please don't get locked in on the word heirlooms.

Dorothy Pohorelow wrote:Hybrids(F1 normally) will not breed true.  The words you are looking for are Open Pollinated or OP.  Those will produce plants like themselves.  Recently there has been an increase in OP varieties available to the home gardener. While not heirlooms they can work better in some areas so please don't get locked in on the word heirlooms.

Ah! Ok. This is most helpful. I did know that hybrid is not what I wanted. However I didn't realize OP is what I should be looking for. Thank you so much.

Some plants mate with themselves (self fertile).  They're really easy to save and will most likely stay true to type.  Some examples are peas, tomatoes and lettuce.

Some plants need a friend to mate with.  If you only have plants of that type in your garden/area, they'll stay true to type.

Some plants have lots of friends and it's tricky to figure out if you only have one compatible mate in the area (like squash).  Zucchini, acorn squash, spaghetti squash and some pumpkins can all cross with one another.

Hybrids are deliberate crosses (bernie-doodle dog) that, even if bred with another bernie doodle might end up more bernie or more doodle.  Still a dog though...

I'd say about an hour of research on the topic should set you up for a pretty good understanding of what's easiest to save and hardest.  Non-gmo and organic are unrelated to their breeding characteristics.  Biennial crops are harder to save since you need to let them overwinter for seed on year #2.

Understood, yes! Thanks. I've been staying away from hybrids because my very deliberate intention is to breed the exact, same specific variety, year after year, of certain crops. So when seeds are labeled "hybrid," they get an automatic hard pass from me (side note: why does everyone refer to this as a hard pass? shouldn't it be an easy pass?)

Mostly it's the "survival" crops are the ones I'm being so particular about --  corn, potatoes, beans, peas, pumpkin, cabbage. If they are labeled "organic" or "non-GMO," but not OP or heirloom, does that mean I'll necessarily get the same exact specimen the following year? And now you see my confusion 🤦‍♀️

What everyone is saying is accurate. However.... I'm gonna throw another hoe in the works. If you only want to grow one variety of tomato, or cabbage, etcetera, you're golden. Several types of beans should be fine. There is only 5*/* outcrossing in beans. There are 3 families in the squash category, if you grow only one variety of each you are fine. But zucchini and yellow squash are both in the pepo family. Crosses will happen. It won't show up until next year's plants produce fruit. This is not necessarily a bad thing. If both parent fruit taste good, their progeny is likely taste good.


Here's the hoe to be thrown.It's called landrace gardening. Here's a post about Joseph's book. Read a couple reviews in the thread to get an idea about the subject.

For me it boils down to one concept. Even if you get crosses, when you plant a tomato seed, you will get a tomato plant. If you plant a potato, that's what you'll get.

Or, for the next few years, learn about ways to isolate your plants to prevent crossing. Here is a good article about using distance to achieve isolation in tomatoes.

And for tomato's and other fruit who's flowers are both male and female, here's how to use bags for isolation.

Understood, and thank you so very much! Appreciate the thorough explanation and valuable resources.

I probably should have clarified in my original post... I'm familiar with cross-pollination just enough to know the trouble I can run into if I grow more than one variety at a time. This is the reason I first want to build my seed vault, only then can I afford to experiment and throw more caution to the wind. And if by some drastic luck something produces itself to be a truly disgusting hot mess, well then I always have my original seeds to fall back on and start from scratch (btw, all my seeds are getting meticulously labeled, catalogued and stored in a freezer). But to even get to that point, I need to start with seeds which are certain to reproduce true to the mother. And the labels some seed companies and sellers use (Heirloom, Organic, Non-GMO and OP) has me doing mental gymnastics.

Looks like I'm safe so long as the label specifically indicates "OP" and/or "Heirloom." So I think my question has been answered. Thank you everyone! That said, I still don't understand why some seeds are labeled "organic" or "non-gmo" (maybe this is a health or nutrition issue for some?). Personally, I'm not as concerned about that. The way I see it, if there are no seeds, there is no food. If we don't eat, we die. And if we're dead, health becomes kind of a non-issue 🙃

Good luck with your seed bank project kristine, interestingly I discovered recently that Scotland has a seed bank specifically for farmers' own seeds , SASA, (including landraces) in case of crop failure and for research purposes.
Personally I think that the activity of selecting and growing out the seeds will be as valuable to people as the actual seeds themselves. I love the way that you get so many seeds when you save your own that you can afford to be liberal with them! Giving seeds away is also a good way of ensuring they might be available in future. Growing them out each year ensures they are always fresh. Doing that as a community spreads out the chore and can help if seed purity is a concern for you.

I think as a general rule terms like OP and Heirloom are mostly just marketing. Like the original post said "the definitions are all over the map. Non-GMO, should mean that it hasn't been genetically modified in a laboratory.  

As far as heirlooms or any other seeds breeding true, I'm not overly concerned about that. I try to only plant varieties that I know are good in the first place so if they get crossed up by wind or insects, whatever comes from that is most likely still going to be good. Say you have two nice varieties of carrots, and they get mixed up, the offspring may not be exactly like either parent, but they will still be good carrots. Only if pollen from something bad is included will the offspring be at risk.

I like some mixing of good varieties because I think it can lead to stronger more robust offspring and in the reshuffling of the genes may, over time result in seeds more adapted to my conditions.  Another example is corn, which is easily cross pollinated by wind. If you plant two or even more nice, sweet corns, even if they are hybrids, whatever comes from the mixed-up seed will still be nice, sweet corn. On the other hand, if you grow sweet corn and flour corn together the offspring will probably not be as good for either purpose, but it will still be corn.

I don't go in too much on the landrace approach because it mixes up too many different kinds, some of which might not be so good and were included accidentally, or on purpose in an effort to bring in disease or drought tolerance from an otherwise inferior parent. It may offer a way to over the long term to arrive at more locally adapted varieties, but I think it would take way too long and, in the meantime, there may not be much good to eat.

Anyway, I think mixing of things that all grow well, produce well and taste good is fine, mixing things that are unknown or have some bad trait, not so much.