Tomato Seed Saving

Tomato harvest is in high gear. Even the longest season open pollinated heirloom plants are ready. The words open pollinated, means you can save seeds from these varieties. (If a tomato is a hybrid, typically designated by F1. Then if you saved the seed it would not come true to the original plant, but would revert back to the traits of the parents. This is a complicated topic and one for another post.)

Saving seed from an OP variety of tomato is relatively easy, but why would you want to? One reason is to preserve an older variety. Another would be to select for traits favorable to your local climate and needs. If you are selling commercially like we are, maybe cosmetics and flavor are important. If you are just cutting the tomatoes up for canning, then maybe juiciness, flavor, or color is key.

OP varieties I like are Brandywine and Pruden's Purple, but there are hundreds of other varieties in each category of slicers, Roma's or cherry tomatoes. Assuming you have chosen the variety you want, if you haven't grown any this year you can go down to the local farmer's market and get a wide variety there. Select several tomatoes for seed from different plants if you can to keep the genetic base as wide as possible. Tomatoes are typically self fertile so having fruit from several plants is not critical like it would be from a corn population (again a topic for another post).

So here we go, how to save seeds.