Want a BIG conversation? Read on . . .
Many heirlooms are very location-specific, as V suggests. Many hybrids are broadly adaptable.
Mary, Sungold is a hybrid. It is just a hybrid that many of those who just about refuse to grow hybrids - can't bear to not have in their gardens!
So Lucky, hybrids began to show up a long time ago. Of course, prehistoric farmers knew about the advantages of maintaining stable inbred lines of livestock and then crossing their animals with a new bull, or whatever, in the village on the other side of the mountain.
Some plant breeding is the simplest process. If you plant 2 lines of corn together, then remove all of the tassels from the plants of 1 line, the ears that develop on those plants will be the results of crosses with the other line. The seed from hybrid corn varieties is cheap and carries valued characteristics from the 2 lines while exhibiting what is called "hybrid vigor."
Let's say the male line has no real qualities other than quick-maturity. However, the offspring (the seed) has all the disease resistance, large ear size, and wonderful sweetness of the mother line. The offspring does, however, mature sweet corn in 70 days whereas the mother plants take 85 days to mature. Now, we have a variety that I am interested in growing! Am I afraid of it? Of course not!
Some plants are much more difficult to cross than corn. My understanding is that peas and beans are in this group. There's no real "monkey wrenching" under electronic microscopes that is necessary to develop new varieties, probably. They just don't have the flower structure that lends itself to easy manipulation.
And manipulating is what farmers were doing in prehistory and what goes on today.
I'm not prehistoric but do go back to a time before soopermarket. I can easily remember the first one! I actually think that new produce varieties were necessary because of the improved lighting in those stores! The interstate highway system was put together and farms consolidated and became parts of a nationwide food industry! Some of the old varieties fell by the wayside. Some of them, because of the new industry. Some of them, were only around because nothing better had shown up to displace them.
Plant breeders are behind every variety that I grow in my garden - heirloom & hybrid. Probably, I wouldn't be able to grow sweet corn here if the only varieties that were available are the ones that were in existence in the 19th century. Would I like to go back to the Golden Bantam that was the big step forward or even to Golden Cross Bantam? No, I've moved on.
I resent the consolidation of the seed industry. Yet, it does reflect everything else that is going on in modern society. I hate to be dependent on the industry for the varieties that I grow. A hybrid broccoli variety that could produce a crop in a climate that quickly turns from too much cold in the spring, to arid summer heat dropped completely off the lists several years ago. That left me scrambling to come up with an alternative. The companies usually own the parent lines and they ain't sharing!
I know this isn't what you were asking, So Lucky. I grow hybrids in many cases. Heirlooms are a continuing interest and I save a little seed from some of the better ones. Makes me feel a little more in control. I don't find it very difficult to save seed from tomatoes and some of the brassicas and recommend doing that for everyone. It's fun, too!
Steve
