Disease in saved seeds?

Hi All.

Some of last year's leeks are now producing the buds for flowering heads, but have some mild leek/onion rust. If the seeds are saved, will they carry the disease?

Similarly, I've got some tomato seedlings that germinated from seeds from fallen tomatoes from last years crop, of which many got tomato blight. Will these carry the disease? I plan on putting them in big pots though, so they won't spread whatever they've got (if they've got it) to the surrounding soil.

cheers,
Dave

 

The seed of a plant carries the genetic map of the plant but does not carry over any disease from the parent plant, that's why we use 'seed' potatoes. So your saved seed should be fine. It's another matter what grows from the seed, depending how the plant was polinated, the seed probably won't grow true to type, you might get something better or worse than the original. I think first hybrids usualy revert back to one of the original plants used for the cross polination, maybe someone with more knowledge of the subject could explain better than me

 

As far as I know seed itself is usually virus and disease free.
However seed from fallen fruits etc. can very easily get contaminated at an early stage if the growing conditions are not perfectly clean.

Just something that you said terrier, but seed potatos are not really seed, they are tubers, so can carry diseases over from one year to the next, thats why they sell certified potato seed, that is free from virus.