Can Market Growers Save Their Sunflower Seeds?

Are sunflowers good for #seedsavingformarketgrowers?

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There�s the squirrels, the birds, and the children tearing up those mature heads to get the seeds.

But you can work your way around that by covering the flowers once they start to set seeds with onion bags. You can also cut the seed heads and set them to dry indoors.

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And sunflowers are crossers. (All the pollinators know where your sunflowers are in the garden!)

So you need to decide whether to keep one true variety or to maintain a diversity of flower colours and heights and branching patterns in your population.

(Isolate your varieties by 1000ft or so to avoid most crossing and keep multiple varieties true to type.)

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The real challenge is whether you�re growing F1 hybrid seed or open pollinated seed.

When you�re growing cut flowers for market, it�s pretty hard to beat those F1 varieties for uniform heads and harvest dates. They are ready just when you need them.

But saving seed from F1 sunflowers will give you anything but uniform seed.

That�s the pickle.

If you grow F1 sunflowers, skip on sunflowers for seed saving.

If you grow OP sunflowers, bring on the seeds (and the squirrels.)