There is a lot of confusion out there regarding hybrid vs. heirloom plants, especially when it comes to tomatoes. What's the difference? This simple guide sorts it out for you. (Bonnie Plants offers both hybrid and heirloom varieties, but every plant we sell is non-GMO.)
Hybrid Plants
A hybrid vegetable is created when plant breeders intentionally cross-pollinate two different varieties of a plant, aiming to produce an offspring, or hybrid, that contains the best traits of each of the parents. Cross-pollination is a natural process that occurs within members of the same plant species.
In hybridization, pollination is carefully controlled to ensure that the right plants are crossed to achieve the desired combination of characteristics, such as bigger size or better disease resistance. The process of developing a hybrid typically requires many years.
One example is Juliet, a 1999 All-America Selections winner. This Roma-style grape tomato offers great taste and productivity along with improved disease resistance to increase success in the garden. Another is Sun Gold, a prolific yellow cherry tomato that's so sweet and delicious, it's like candy from the garden.
In general, hybrids offer some combination of these favorable traits: dependability, less required care, early maturity, higher yield, improved flavor, specific plant size, and/or better disease resistance. Hybrid vegetables typically look like the veggies you'd find at a supermarket.
Heirloom Plants
How experts define heirlooms can vary, but typically they are at least 50 years old, and are often pre-WWII varieties. Most heirlooms come from seed that has been handed down for generations in a particular region or area, hand-selected by gardeners for a special trait. Others may have been developed by a university a long time ago (again, at least 50 years), in the early days of commercial breeding. All heirloom vegetables are open-pollinated, which means they're pollinated by insects or wind without human intervention. In addition, they tend to remain stable in their characteristics from one year to the next.
Many gardeners agree that most heirloom varieties boast greater flavor than that found in hybrids, especially among tomatoes. Bonnie's heirloom tomato varieties are clearly marked on the plant trays.
While hybrid plants typically yield a crop that is uniform in both appearance and timing, heirloom vegetables may produce a "mixed bag" harvest. The harvest may come in less predictably, and fruit size can vary greatly even on the same plant.
Despite their sometimes odd looks and quirky ways, heirlooms bring lots to the table (literally!). The Amish heirloom tomato Pink Brandywine, for example, yields fruit with an unbeatable flavor in shades reminiscent of a glass of Cabernet. Arkansas Traveler, a Southern favorite, originated in Northwest Arkansas prior to 1900 and gradually found its way across the South to North Carolina. Offering some resistance to cracking and disease, this beauty yields delicious tomatoes under typical Southern summer conditions–high heat, high humidity, and drought.
What Kind Is Right for Me?
In the battle of hybrid vs. heirloom plants, we suggest growing both hybrid and heirloom vegetables (especially tomatoes!). Doing so will ensure a reliable, flavorful harvest that offers a lot of variety and, truly, the best of both worlds.
While hybrid plants typically yield a crop that is uniform in both appearance and timing, heirloom vegetables
heirloom vegetables
An heirloom plant, heirloom variety, heritage fruit (Australia and New Zealand), or heirloom vegetable (especially in Ireland and the UK) is an old cultivar of a plant used for food that is grown and maintained by gardeners and farmers, particularly in isolated communities of the Western world.
Usually, we call a plant an heirloom when it was developed more than 50 years ago. Their traits have been very stable over time. A “hybrid” cultivar, on the other hand, is not open pollinated and if you try to save the seeds and plant them next year, the tomatoes you get will not be the same as the parent plants.
A hybrid will have F1 in its name or just below. The description might say which plants were crossed to create it, but will always mention disease resistance and other traits.
Both heirloom and hybrid tomatoes make excellent garden plants. Heirlooms have unbeatable flavors while hybrids offer improved traits like better disease resistance, increased yield, or earlier maturity.
Most heirloom seeds are more vulnerable to diseases because commercial seeds are usually bred specifically for disease resistance. Heirloom seeds also have lower yields than hybrids, which can be a disadvantage for farmers and home growers with limited space.
Hybrid seeds are typically more expensive due to the financial investment required by the seed companies in order to develop new strains. Investment in this respect relates to finding two suitable partner plants and hand-pollination. The higher cost is passed on to growers.
Do not save seed from F1 or hybrid plants if you want to be certain that the plants grown from the seed will be the same as their parents. Plants that grow from seed saved from hybrid plants generally are less vigorous, more variable, and usually have smaller blossoms and yield less than their parents.
How experts define heirlooms can vary, but typically they are at least 50 years old, and are often pre-WWII varieties. Most heirlooms come from seed that has been handed down for generations in a particular region or area, hand-selected by gardeners for a special trait.
Heirloom tomatoes are susceptible to fungal and bacterial infections; keeping the foliage dry helps to prevent these diseases. Avoid water splashing up onto foliage by using drip tape and mulch in the garden. These practices also help to get a more thorough watering to the roots.
The truth is that all heirloom seeds are open-pollinated, but not all open-pollinated seeds are heirloom. All open-pollinated seeds can be saved year on year and grow true to type with proper saving practices.
As a result, growers might use fewer pesticides and chemicals when cultivating heirlooms, since regionally-adapted plants won't need as much maintenance as other crops. Some growers will say that heirlooms are harder to grow, but the right heirlooms for your area will be as easy as hybrids.
Preserving heirloom seeds is a wonderful way to celebrate family traditions, but there are plenty of other compelling reasons to save any type of seed. Seed saving helps trim your yearly gardening budget while allowing you to continually grow plants that do well in your backyard growing conditions.
Finally, some growers define heirlooms as lines of plants, grown locally or regionally, that have been passed down through families or groups. All heirloom plants are open pollinated – meaning that seed from these varieties can be saved each year by home gardeners and will grow 'true to type' from seed each time.
HEIRLOOMS AND HYBRIDS: THE BOTANY BACKSTORY BEGINS WITH A SEED. Every plant begins with a seed, and all plants require pollination to produce new seeds. Heirloom plants are open-pollinated, which means that wind or insects do the work of pollination, physically moving pollen from plant to plant.
Those plants and crops that commonly show hybrid vigor, express increases in productivity, plant uniformity, and overall vigor. Hybrid breeding methods are particularly useful in these crops: beets, broccoli, corn, peppers, rice, spinach, sunflowers, tomatoes, and watermelon as well as many common flowers.
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