What an F1 hybrid is

An F1 hybrid is the first generation of a deliberate cross between two parent lines. A seed company or breeder keeps each parent inbred, or otherwise stable, and then crosses the two. F1 means "first filial generation": the offspring of that cross.

How the seed is made

Pepper flowers usually pollinate themselves. To make the cross, the breeder stops the mother flower from using its own pollen. Commercial seed is produced in one of two ways:

  • Hand pollination. The bud is opened before it sheds pollen, the anthers are removed, and pollen from the other parent is put on the stigma. The flower is bagged so no other pollen gets in.
  • Male-sterile mother lines. Some breeders use a mother line that makes no viable pollen. Pollen from the father line is then brought to those flowers, by hand or by insects, and the seed is the cross.

The seed sold as the hybrid comes from repeating that same cross of the two parent lines. Growers who want the same F1 again buy new seed each season.

What the F1 plants are like

Plants grown from that seed are uniform. Each one received the same combination of genes from the same two parents, so the crop tends to match in size, shape, color, and timing. The F1 is often more vigorous than either parent grown on its own.

F1 hybrids are productive. Seed packets and starter plants are readily available at garden centers and hardware stores. They are a good entry point for growers who buy new plants or seed each year rather than saving seeds and replanting and/or overwintering their plants.

Seed from an F1 does not grow true

Seed saved from an F1 plant is the next generation, the F2. In the F2 the genes from the two parents segregate. The seedlings differ from one another, and from the F1, in size, shape, color, heat, and vigor. Because that saved seed does not grow true to the hybrid, buyers get fresh F1 seed each season rather than replanting what the F1 plant set.

How to tell one from the label

Seed packets and catalog names mark these crosses. The variety name includes "F1", as in Armageddon F1, or the packet uses the word "hybrid".

How an F1 differs from other peppers

  • Open-pollinated. A variety that grows true from saved seed when it is kept from crossing with a different pepper. Growers can save seed and replant it.
  • Heirloom. An open-pollinated variety that has been kept and replanted over many years. Saved seed grows true under that same condition: the plants have to be kept from crossing with another pepper.
  • Unstable hobby cross. A cross someone made and has not grown out until the offspring settle. Those plants still segregate, so one sowing does not match the next. An F1 is uniform in the generation the seed company or breeder sells. The segregation appears when seed is saved from that F1 and grown as an F2.

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