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I have a technical question, and I'm hoping Dr. Carolyn or other experts here can answer it.
I just got done putting my fermented and dried tomato seeds for next year in envelopes. This summer I carefully followed instructions and attempted an F1 hybrid cross of Dr. Wyche's Yellow x German Red Strawberry. We had a bad thunderstorm that did some damage, and I only harvested three tomatoes off Dr. Wyche that were fertilized, to the best of my ability, with G.R.S. pollen. I've saved the seeds harvested from those three tomatoes separately, in envelopes labeled 1, 2, and 3.
Seeds were also saved, fermented, and dried from those two OP parent varieties as they're favorites of mine.
Dr. Wyche always has large light-colored seeds, while G.R.S. has small dark-colored ones. I've saved seeds of both for several seasons now, and that's always been the case.
Of my three "crossed" tomatoes, numbers 1 and 2 yielded seeds that look like G.R.S. seeds, while #3 had seeds that look like Dr. Wyche's Yellow. All three tomatoes were about the same size and ripeness when picked.
Here's what I'm wondering: I know that seed tomatoes grown on Dr. Wyche plants will have all the characteristics of Dr. Wyche tomatoes, even though they've been pollinated by another variety. I'm not so sure about the seeds themselves, though - maybe genetic material from the "father" plant can help determine the physical characteristics of seeds even before the F1 generation? That seems possible to me, and there's really a big difference in the appearance of these seeds.
Does anyone here know? If that's true, then the seeds indicate that tomatoes #1 and #2 were successful crosses and #3 isn't. Thanks.
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