What is a variety and a hybrid? Difference between variety and hybrid. Botanical nomenclature. Rules for writing names of species and varieties
Those who have been growing vegetables and fruits for many years know important differences between a pure variety and a hybrid. The most important thing is taste qualities. So, the pure variety wins unconditionally on this point. Breeders have worked hard and developed a great variety of hybrids, trying to improve the aroma and taste with each new product. But still, many farmers not only return to organics, but also switch from hybrids to pure varieties.
What are the advantages pure varieties before hybrids, we will try to explain in this article.
What is a variety and a hybrid?
Variety is a definition for a selectively selected group of plants. All these plants have their own characteristic features, although they are very similar in appearance to each other. Seeds of varietal crops retain all these characteristics, even if they are planted from year to year.
Hybrid- is the result of crossing several the best varieties in order to improve external, taste and other characteristics. Hybrid seeds are no longer capable of reproducing plants of decent quality.
When purchasing seeds in a store, pay attention to the F1 marking. This inscription denotes a hybrid.
Pros of hybrids
Equally perfect appearance fruits (the shape and size of all fruits are usually approximately the same).
Productivity is high.
It is resistant to diseases and pests.
Self-pollinating plants.
Cons of hybrids
A plant will be able to show all its advantages only if all of them are created for it. favorable conditions:
- Availability fertile soil.
- Compliance temperature regime When growing, sudden temperature changes have a negative effect.
- Weeds must be completely absent.
- Strict adherence to the watering regime (the plant will not survive drought, but excess moisture can also be harmful).
- Timely and numerous feedings.
The hybrid may not withstand the slightest climatic changes or natural anomalies. It is absolutely not adapted to changes in the environment.
Pros of pure varieties
Minimal dependence on agricultural technology.
They can easily survive untimely watering and fertilizing.
They contain a large number useful substances, because varietal plants are closer to nature. They are natural in their biochemical composition. (Compare wild strawberries with country strawberries, and strawberries from your garden with imported berries).
Varietal plants contain much more vitamins and other beneficial components.
The taste qualities of the varieties are significantly superior to the hybrids.
Varietal crops, when propagated by seeds, retain their most important properties for several generations. best qualities.
The varieties are absolutely unpretentious and depend little on the place of cultivation, care and maintenance.
Varietal plants will be able to adapt to natural and weather changes, temperature changes and various climatic surprises and anomalies.
Fruit varietal crops are a storehouse of biologically active components and a high level of substances useful for humans.
Disadvantages of pure varieties
Compared to hybrids, some varieties are bee-pollinated. For example, all varieties of cucumbers without exception, which causes certain inconvenience to summer residents and gardeners. At the same time, cucumbers can still have a bitter taste, and the number of fruits is often small (which cannot be said about hybrids).
One of the largest and significant shortcomings is the difficulty of collecting high-quality seeds from cross-pollinated crops. If in a garden or summer cottage beds with carrots, pumpkin or any cruciferous crops grow in close proximity to each other, then they pollinate each other. This means that their best qualities are reduced or completely lost. But on small area On the ground, it is difficult to isolate plants to a “safe” distance.
Each gardener can only decide for himself what to choose - hybrids or varieties.
Some annually purchase seeds and various mineral supplements from specialized stores, and consider this a very convenient and low-cost (time-consuming) process. Others enjoy spending a lot of time in their garden beds. They are engaged organic farming, use only natural fertilizers, and introduce mulching. They carefully select the best and highest quality seeds for future crops. Most likely, hybrids are grown by those who do it for commercial purposes. Gardeners who want to eat real vegetables and fruits and make delicious preparations for the whole family must, sooner or later, return to varietal crops.
As an experiment, first plant several varieties of tomatoes. The grown varietal fruits will remind you of the taste of childhood, the taste of tomatoes from your grandmother's garden.
For many years we used seeds of common varieties. A variety is the result of long-term selection. Most often it is adapted to a certain climate. In self-fertile plants, it produces seeds of the same variety, and with cross-pollination it begins to slowly and gradually change its characteristics. With good spatial isolation and hand pollination, the variety you like can be preserved for many, many years.
But with the development of genetics, in addition to simple selection, targeted crossing of certain varieties began to be used more and more widely to combine in one offspring a specific combination of the most valuable qualities of the parent plants. As a result of this we get hybrid seeds first generation F1.
How are they different?
“F1” hybrids from variety?
Externally, except for the “F1” index next to the name of the hybrid, these seeds are no different from any other varieties. But their price is much higher, sometimes several times. And this is no coincidence. So what is it?
The seeds of any self-pollinating variety always produce offspring similar to themselves, which retain all their positive and negative properties in the next generation.
Heterotic hybrids never produce such offspring, since the resulting combination of traits is unstable. It persists only in the first generation.
Therefore, by planting seeds taken from the F1 hybrid tomato you have grown, you will get many various plants, among which there may be sterile and unproductive plants, and perhaps (but this is very unlikely) some outstanding plants. And all this is only because heterotic hybrids do not retain the properties of the mother plant.
BUT: F1 hybrids are more productive, and most importantly, much more resistant to diseases, pests and stressful situations than their parent plants.
Gardeners often wonder whether it is possible to buy hybrid seeds from amateur vegetable growers? The short answer is no, no and no!!! You just read above that such a purchase dooms you to failure in advance, since you cannot produce such seeds yourself. Only specialized scientific agricultural institutions can do this.
Selecting parental pairs for producing hybrid seeds is a very labor-intensive job, it takes many years, that is, heterotic hybrids are formed after artificial crossing of certain, strictly selected parental pairs (varieties). Hence the high price of these seeds.
What to choose -
variety or hybrid?
Advantages of varieties:
The seeds of these plants in stores are much cheaper than the seeds of heterotic hybrids;
In the future, you yourself will be able to prepare seeds of the variety you like for many years without much difficulty;
Advantages of heterotic F1 hybrids:
When creating heterotic hybrids, parental lines are selected based on several characteristics at once. The most relevant of them: the ability of plants to withstand temperature changes, pests and diseases, and produce stable yields in any summer. Therefore, many heterotic hybrids have precisely these valuable qualities:
the yield of plants grown from seeds of heterotic hybrids is at least 50% higher than that of maternal and paternal varieties;
Plants grown from such hybrid seeds are able to bear fruit successfully in the most unfavorable conditions;
On hybrid plants, fruit development occurs much faster in the presence of a balanced diet;
Hybrid plants have significantly greater disease resistance compared to varieties;
The fruits on the plant from the lower cluster to the very top are even and of the same size (photos 2 and 3);
Most heterotic hybrids are characterized by very uniform ripening of fruits on the vine (photo 3).
The most important advantage of heterotic hybrids is their significant resistance to diseases and pests compared to varieties. And this is especially important when growing vegetables in film greenhouses. Therefore, if possible, it is necessary to purchase and use seeds (especially from tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, beets) of heterotic “F1” hybrids, despite the significant difference in the price of seeds.
However, this should be done only after advice from a competent specialist. The fact is that most European heterotic hybrids obtained in elite laboratory conditions of Western companies will not be able to show all their best qualities in our harsh climate and agricultural background (let's be sincere), which is an order of magnitude worse than in these laboratories. Therefore, it is necessary to choose only domestic hybrids, which are much better adapted to our cool and often rainy summer.
V.G. Shafransky, Ekaterinburg
You can find this article in the newspaper "Magic Bed" 2010 No. 5.
Number of impressions: 17152
There are many seeds on sale now, especially the basic ones. vegetable crops(tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers), the packages of which bear the designation “F1 hybrids”. The price for such seeds is much higher than for regular varietal ones. How do seeds of regular varieties differ from hybrids?
Varieties of self-pollinating and partially self-pollinating crops retain all their properties and pass them on to their offspring. By collecting seeds from these crops, we will obtain plants with exactly the same set of characteristics. The ability to transmit all their properties to offspring is inherent in the varieties and makes it easy to maintain and propagate, even on personal plot, self-pollinating crops (these are most common varieties of vegetables).
But with mass procurement of seeds, when regular selection of the best plants for a given variety is not used, within three to five years the loss of some characteristics characteristic of a given variety is possible. As vegetable growers say, the variety is degenerating.
The gardener should remember that even with well-established seed production, once every three to five years it is necessary to purchase elite seeds of the variety you like.
Features of hybrids
The hybrid variety, or F1 hybrid, reproduces completely differently. Hybrids are obtained by crossing two different varieties, while the size of the plants in the offspring noticeably increases, their growth and development accelerates, and early maturity and productivity increase. This phenomenon was used to obtain the best hybrid varieties.
Advantages of F1 hybrids over conventional varieties
F1 hybrids are more uniform and aligned in their biological and morphological characteristics than conventional varieties.
They are also distinguished by early ripening and higher yields, resistance to adverse environmental factors.
Their valuable quality is their good adaptability to a frequently changing and not always favorable environment. IN extreme conditions cultivation ( early spring, with sudden changes in air temperature or summer heat), F1 hybrids develop significantly better than conventional varieties. High level adaptation to unfavorable factors contributes to consistently high yields.
Hybrids are genetically resistant to diseases and pests. This is especially true when growing vegetable crops in film greenhouses.
Friendly emergence of seedlings, uniformity of plants, high quality and uniformity of fruits, genetic resistance to diseases and pests - positive qualities F1 hybrids, due to their biological uniformity.
Unlike conventional varieties, it is unacceptable to harvest seeds from hybrid plants. Due to splitting, the offspring are so heterogeneous that there can be no talk of any high yield. The fact that the seeds of F1 hybrids must be purchased in the store each time is their only drawback.
Any gardener has heard that there are breeding and hybrid varieties vegetable crops. But not everyone knows how hybrid seeds differ from ordinary ones and how to determine whether they belong to one or the other. Information about this and the differences in agricultural technology between varietal and hybrid plants will be useful to many beginning vegetable growers.
Differences between variety and hybrid
You need to start, first of all, by defining the variety and hybrid. A group is called a variety cultivated plants, obtained through selection and possessing a certain useful characteristic or characteristics that distinguish them from all other representatives of the same species.
New varieties are developed from other varieties as a result of targeted selection of the best specimens. Usually this requires more than one generation of plants; the work takes several years, or even decades. Closely related varieties that have similar characteristics are combined into variety types.
All varietal plants have the same appearance, economic and morphological characteristics and invariably pass them on to their offspring. Therefore, one can hope that from the seeds collected from the fruits of such plants grown in their own beds, vegetables will grow that are no different from the previous ones.
Varietal plants can be easily propagated and grown on your site for several years in a row, without purchasing seeds from manufacturers.
Hybrids are plants that are obtained as a result of controlled crossing of 2 or several parental forms (varieties or lines) differing in genotype. The first generation of hybrids is designated by the marking, the second - “F2”, etc. The purpose of obtaining them for breeders is to use the phenomenon of heterosis, or strengthening vitality, which manifests itself when “parents” with different genes are combined.
In practice, this translates into the following advantages:
- acceleration of growth and development, adaptation to unfavorable conditions;
- a sharp increase in viability, early maturity or yield;
- strengthening resistance to diseases and pests;
- simultaneous fruiting;
- increasing the transportability and keeping quality of fruits.
Agricultural enterprises usually prefer to grow all kinds of hybrids rather than varieties. However, hybrids, as a rule, are inferior to varietal vegetables in terms of richness of taste and nutritional value.
And now about the main difference between one and the other. The fundamental difference between them is precisely the stability of transmission to generations of descendants characteristic features. In hybrids, the characteristics for which they are obtained are extremely unstable and disintegrate into the original ones, starting from the second generation.
Plants obtained from seeds taken from the fruits of F1 hybrids lag behind them in many respects and do not grow as quickly. They are less productive, and this is one of the main characteristics that distinguishes hybrid plants from varietal ones. This is why you should not collect seeds from hybrid fruits. Only the right decision in this case, buy the seeds of the hybrid you like in vegetable stores every season again. Moreover, you need to choose a manufacturer that has good reputation, and not take whatever you have from random sellers.
How to identify varietal and hybrid seeds
Visually, by external signs, this is impossible to do. In this respect, a variety is no different from a hybrid: all seeds of plants of the same species are similar to each other in size, shape and color.
Some vegetable growers have noticed that the seeds of hybrids are smaller and even in size. Most often this is exactly the case, but you don’t always need to rely on this alone. The evenness of the seeds is explained by the fact that they are calibrated using special installations.
It is more difficult to obtain hybrids, so their seeds are more expensive, especially the newest varieties. They are also most often treated with protective substances. bright colors- in any case, foreign companies always carry out such processing of their products. These are indirect signs by which hybrids can be distinguished from varieties.
In fact, the only way to identify hybrid seeds is by the “F1” or “F2” marking after the name, indicating a 1st or 2nd generation hybrid. Such information is always placed on the seed package on both sides; it is difficult not to notice it.
Features of agricultural technology
You can’t just choose one or another variety of vegetables, buy seeds and count on high yield. In order for them to show their full potential, plants need to be provided with certain growing conditions and constant care.
The technology for cultivating varieties and hybrids involves timely watering and fertilizing, because without nutrients coming from the soil, good harvest won't be able to get it. This is especially true for hybrids, since they are more productive and therefore require more intensive nutrition.
Plants need to be protected from weeds by regularly removing them from the beds so that they do not pull nutrients from the soil; protect from pests and diseases, that is, during the growing season, carry out spraying - preventive or therapeutic in case of detection of diseases. If you do not take care of the plants, not a single variety, even the best one, will be able to produce the entire volume of yield declared by the breeders.
So, determining whether seeds are varietal or not is very simple. When purchasing them, you need to pay attention to what is written on the packages and save them so that you can always clarify the information.
