heirloom vs hybrid

[calypso80]

I was having a conversation with a fellow classmate about heirloom vs hybrid and I was informed that heirloom is better. Does anyone have any information on this subject? Which is better? Is there any difference in taste or how to grow these specific plants? Any info would be helpfull.
Thankyou,
Lyssa:)

[spicyfull]

Heirlooms are Seeds which are untreated and were passed on from earlier days before MAN began to make them more disease resistance, during this process natural Germs placed there by our Creater were tampered with thus we have stronger plants missing Enzymes etc. thus effecting us in ways we don't know.........Hybrid. HEIRLOOM IS ALWAYS BEST.

[rawstrength]

I am growing heirloom tomatoes in my garden for the first time ever this year. The plants are WAY stronger than the hybrid tomatoes I have grown in the past. They are magnificent. Also, I have tasted heirloom tomatoes (just not my own home grown ones) and they taste way better than hybrid tomatoes.
I'm sure it's similar with other plants, too. My Vietnamese friends tell me that the wild bananas in Vietnam are wayy more tasty and nothing like the hybrid bananas sold in the U.S. Give me some!

[carolg]

rareseeds.com is greatest place for heirloom tomatoes...great service, seeds and all....

carolg

[oai]

heirlooms definitely taste better. i don't know why. maybe because they're more nutritious?

i think i read somewhere that although hybrids are more resistant to whatever they're made to be resistant to, if you were to save their seeds to grow in the next crop, the seeds are weaker and bear weaker crop. farmers actually have to keep buying "new" hybrid seeds.

i'm not sure how true that it is, but it sounds less cost effective in the long run than just growing heirlooms.

[calypso80]

I wonder if I plant the tomato seed from my heirloom tomato plant then they will grow more heirloom tomato plant? Hmm. I started growing some pink brandywine heirloom tomato plants this year and they are so hugh. I unfortunately didn't do my homework on these plants. I've just been letting them grow wild. Someone also told me that to be an heirloom plant or I guess seed it has to be over fifty years. Kinda wondering how that would be possible.
Lyssa:)

[oai]

it's possible. birds and other animals forage. they also poop out the seeds. suppose if the seed isn't on fertile grounds, there's the wind.

nature does some of the distributing via winds and rains. there are also some people who save heirloom seeds to be sold or shared with others in order to save heirloom plants from becoming extinct.