No, saved F2 seeds from an F1 hybrid plant will not give you the same plant, only seeds from what's called an OP (open pollinated) plant will do that as long as there's been no cross pollination or mutation.

There's a very good FAQ, link at the top of this page that discusses how to prevent cross pollination of OP varieties..

Carolyn

I recently bought Parks whopper Hybrid seeds. If I saved seeds from this tomato and prevented cross polination, what can I expect? If I allow cross polination with beefsteak tomatoes, what can I expect?

What you can do is clone the plants. That way you don't have to keep buying seeds every year.

pretty.girl - How is that done?

CharlieBoring, when you talk about crossing Park's Whopper with "beefsteak tomatoes," do you mean the variety Beefsteak, or some unknown beefsteak type?

If it was crossed with the variety Beefsteak, you'd get a red beefsteak, probably slightly larger than PW. It would be indeterminate. The locules might be smaller than PW. The flavor might be better than PW. I don't remember enough about PW (didn't think much of it the one time I grew it) and I don't know enough about genetics to say more.

If PW was crossed with a different beefsteak type, what you'd get would depend on the traits of the other beefsteak type.

CharlieBoring, the following is a link to my cloning process. I picked up the idea from Gardenweb. Some people use root starter but I don't. There are folks that are overwintering cloned plants and never have to buy new seeds.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cloning tomatoes

Pretty gurl, I can see cloning being done for hybrid varieties, but not for OP's.

As soon as the cloned OP'sor F1's get too big they have to be recloned and then done possibly a third time in order to have plants ready for transplanitng outside.And that takes up more room than many wish to allocate.

As to the cost of seeds for either F1 hybrids or OP's I think there's a big range depending on what the specific sources are and which specific hybridsor OP's are under consideration and that relates to specific seed vendors..

And then look atallof us here with our computers, our software we add, and total up the cost of all that and it does seem to me to be quite a bit of money depending on individual sets ups, and thinking of that it also seems to me that the cost of seeds is not something to worryabout.

In addition, usually the packs have 25 to 30 seeds and for home gardeners that should be enough for several seasons if they regrow the same varieties.

Most don't, I also know that. LOL

As to cloning, the only thing I'd like to add is that it's best to trim back the sucker, as you said, but then put it into artificial mix, not water as so many do. The reason for that is that cuttings rooted in water have to then adapt to a solid matrix, so why not do it from the beginning,

Carolyn, who cloned plants only when there had been critter damage in her tomato field or the man who worked for the man who used to use the land at our farm would cultivate and hook out some plants. And if I arrived there when the hooked out plants were still alive, you know, hearts beating, LOL, and they were hard to get varieties, then I'd clone them, stick the suckers right next to the damaged plants, build a wee moat around the cutting and keep it full of water until I saw new growth.

Cloning, aka rooting cuttings, is normally done with INdeterminates rater than determinates. Determinates, as their name implies, have a termination end on any cutting one makes. Once the terminal bud develops the plant shuts down further growth. Take the cuttings much younger/smaller or trim off the ends.

And as Carolyn said, water rooting gains you nothing.

Parks Whopper - ASFAIK Parks has never revealed the multiple parentage of Whopper so saved seed from it will revert back to one of its parent stock. To this day they continue to "improve" it with additional disease resistance so the current version could have several different contributing varieties.

If you want to grow Park's Whopper then you have to buy Park's Whopper seeds or root cuttings from the plants.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: How to root cuttings discussions

All I can say is that my style of cloning has worked for me. I also don't prune plants by trimming off suckers. I have had worse results when I have done it.

As far as plant height, I have an indoor container indeterminate (Juliet) that I am getting ready to prune the top off of. I have read that you can halt the growth.

Again, almost all of my methods have been obtained here at Gardenweb.

Pretty gurl, Husky Cherry Red is a dwarf indeterminate -- not a determinate. I think most people who clone tomatoes do so with indeterminate plants.

As far as plant height, I have an indoor container indeterminate (Juliet) that I am getting ready to prune the top off of. I have read that you can halt the growth.

Please let us know how that works. Normally an indeterminate will just sprout 2 new secondary branches from the node below your cut and keep right on growing.

But it is a frequent question here so it would be helpful to know if topping your plant has other than the normal response.

Dave

If you plant seeds from a hybrid tomato, you can get a lot of different tomatoes, some good, some not so good. I did a growout, as it's called, one year from saved seeds of a Husky Gold. I had about 6 plants. Two were tall and weedy and never bloomed. Another couple didn't produce much and they tasted okay, but only had a couple of gold tomatoes per plant. I got one that was gold, an really good, on a normal sized plant, which I called "Not So Husky Gold".

One person I know of did a growout of about 30 plants from one hybrid, grew them in 1 gallon pots, one per pot, and by the time they produced, he knew which ones were worth saving. You can take one that you like, save seeds, do another growout next season, etc. until you've stabilized one that you like, then you'll have your own OP variety. It will take about 4 generations to stabilize a new variety.

Hybrid tomatoes are very complex hybrids, so there's no telling what you'll get if you plant saved seeds. I think it's interesting to do.

And to tell the truth, some of the plants that are labeled "F1" aren't hybrids, they just don't want the public to know that, so they won't save seeds. I have no idea which ones, though, I'm sure it's different ones from about 20 years ago when I learned this.

carolync1, the place where I purchased the plants is questionable and they marked them as a determinate. The characteristics all favored a determinate. It may not be what it was but that is what I am sticking with.

To me it doesn't matter. I am going to clone whatever I can.

As an example of what happens when you grow a hybrid seed, I planted grocery store Romas and got the same Roma with one seed. But with another seed, I got a large round cherry tomato. The cherry was actually pretty tasty but had the hard storage qualities of a grocery store tomato.

I also grew a Campari which had supposedly been grown out and considered an OP version. I got a hard little cherry with pointed ends that was not good at all.

A fellow has grown out Husky Cherry Red seeds and produced a tomato that grows 14 feet tall which he considers the best cherry tomato he's ever tasted and saves the seed and grows it every year.

It's interesting to see what you get when you grow a hybrid. But the results are usually not worth the effort unless you are doing it as a science experiment. You could start the beginnings of your own OP version though.