What are Hybrid Vegetables?

You might see the word hybrid on seed packets, in seed catalogs and describing some young plants. Here are the important things to know about hybrid vegetable seeds and plants.

You might see the word hybrid on seed packets, in seed catalogs and describing some young plants. All the label really means is that the variety of plant in question is the result of a cross between two parent plants of different sub species or varieties of the same plant, generally through cross-pollination. Now you might ask why go through the trouble making hybrids, and there are some good reasons as well as some disadvantages to hybrids.
 
Generally, two good parents offer the genetic traits of predictability, uniformity and disease resistance to the next generation. Hybrid offspring tend to be more productive and robust than either parent. Hybrid vigor is the term often used to describe the healthy exuberance that seems to result from the positive traits of one parent cancelling out the negative traits of the other. It takes a lot of work and trial and error to find the perfect combination of parent plants to produce the desired effects. There is a lot of testing involved to be sure that the pants can replicate the same desired traits with consistency. Thankfully, there are seed companies and greenhouses out there do that work for those of us that want to simply buy the results.

One downside is that hybrid seeds and plants are generally more expensive than the alternatives. Producing a quality hybrid seed involves maintaining the two parent lines and then hand pollinating. Think about just how many plants they need to care for, pollinate and then harvest seeds from to fill the demand for seeds and young plants. When you consider all the hard work, research and testing that does into creating these hybrids the additional cost is understandable.

The other downside of hybrid vegetables is that you cannot harvest and use the seeds from one year’s crop for the following year. Well, you could harvest the seeds; however, the resulting plants would not the same as the plant you harvested from. Instead, the next generation would carry some of the traits of its parents, rather than a repeat of your successful hybrid. Therefore, if you want to grow hybrid pants every year you are locked into buying new seeds or young plants of that particular hybrid every single year.

Some of the hybrid vegetables have names that I am familiar with, and you might be as well, are among the most popular. Hybrid vegetables include the Big Boy beefsteak tomatoes, Nantes carrots, Silver Queen sweet corn, Blushing Beauty bell peppers, Crenshaw cantaloupes and Salad Bowl lettuce.