Fuc*#@ng What the Fu#* tomato seeds?

[HamdenRice]

A post in GD reminded me of this from weekend before last. I was planting flats of tomatoes -- Roma, beefsteak, best boy and a few others from Burpee.

I noticed the back of the Best Boy said, unlike the others, packaged in China.

When I opened the packet, unlike the others they were really stingy with the seeds -- I counted EXACTLY 30 seeds, while the American packaged varieties had probably 4 or 5 times as many seeds.

Why are we importing tomato seeds from China???

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Heh. Maybe it's the same way that garlic can be imported so cheaply.

It also sounds like Burpee may be saving by reducing the number of seeds per packet. Best Boy is an hybrid and requires that you buy seed each time rather than seed saving. That also means that the seed companies need to hybridize continually to keep up the production and as we know, producing in a country with lower labor costs can go a long way towards making offshoring a prudent corporate decision.

[HamdenRice]

2. I used to know a corporate lawyer who had been a corn "tassler" or "detassler" as a kid

and that made me understand why hybrid seeds are so expensive compared to seed saving. And it helps me understand why seed companies might go to China.

The key to hybrids is crossing two pure strains that are different. You can't let random pollen pollinate the plant.

We have millions of acres of corn, almost all of it planted in hybrid. That means that the seed companies have to hire an army of mostly kids to walk up and down rows of corn plants that are growing seed corn, removing (?) the tassles and dusting the corn with harvested pollen.

I get that it's labor intensive to produce hybrid seeds, but can't we do this here? And why are the Chinese produced seeds MORE stingy than the American ones?

(Unless you're saying roma and beefsteak are a land race non-hybrid?)

[Gormy Cuss]

3. I wasn't saying that it can't be done here, just that they may have found China a cheaper solution.

Burpee's a massive seed company and with the volume that they sell it may have made sense to move seed production to China. A lot of hybrid seed comes from abroad --IIRC India/South Asia is another seed production area.

Almost all of the sweet corn seeds available in this country is from hybrid seed.

I wasn't commenting on Romas and beefsteak, but I think Romas are OP; not sure about beefsteaks. I believe that all of the "Boy" and "Girl" tomatoes are hybrids. We grow Early Girls and Sweet 100s hybrids but all of our other tomatoes are OPs.