Stability vs. Generationsl Stability

I think this would be a cool conversation:

People use the term hybrid in such wild and different ways that I want to avoid using it to avoid the confusion.  Lets use these terms for this conversation to avoid the discussion over what the word hybrid means.

Stable seeds - The seed will always grow true.
Generational stable seeds - Seed harvested from the plant will also grow true.

I read a great deal about growing peppers out 8 generations to create Generational Stable Seeds.  In other fields, there seems more a focus on the cross itself.

Sex Link Chicken - These are crosses between different breeds of chicken which result in offspring are different colors based on gender.  Makes sexing peeps really easy.  Thing is, the offspring of the crosses will not breed true.  They do not lay sex link eggs.  So if you want a sex link, you buy the cross.

Seedless Watermelon - Kind of a duh here as it has no viable seeds.  Ah, but you can purchase the seeds because it is a cross.

Mules - Cross a female horse and a male donkey, you get a very useful animal that can not have offspring.

Mule Ducks - A cross between a Muscovy duck and domestic ducks which were derived from the mallard.  They can not have offspring and are very much sought after by people who want to stock a pond with ducks, but do not want to worry about over population or predictor balance.

So many useful things which are not genetically stable.  Either they can not have offspring or their offspring will not resemble the parents.  But with the super hot peppers there seems to be a big focus on generationally stable seeds.

Now I love this.  Got my gardening start with heirloom everything and seed saving.  But it seems odd.  Could it be that most chili head gardeners plant to seed save?  If so, bravo.  I dont think most other gardeners do.

***** MIND       BLOWN ******  
 
You know too much about various forms of infertility and selective breeding across a plethora of life forms
 
I'm not sure if there was a question or topic in there exactly, but feel free to refine your point in this direction for me to respond =D

Correct me if I'm wrong but are you saying that you believe most pepper growers are naturally inclined to collect seeds were other types of vegetable / fruit / flower growers as a general rule don't care for seed collection.

In relation to hybrids, are you saying as there isn't a purpose in crossing one species of pepper to another that results in infertile seed as the fruit itself does not change on the host F1 seed that peppers are another difference some other life forms don't share ?

Different strokes.
 
F1 hybrids have their place.  But generally for large-scale commercial growing.  Commercial F1's are predictable i.t.o yield, time to ripen, size of bush etc - makes it easier from a management perspective (harvesting, handling, etc)
 
Given that we generally have limited space, we want to grow something predictable - I am not going to sow a bunch of hobbyist F1 seeds when what I want is cultivar x - I don't have the space to sit with 20+ plants that aren't what I what.  Unless of course you are trying to create something then that is how it is - lots of seedlings and select what you want from them.  Reality is:  you are now selecting and trying to stabilise that which you like - so back full circle - you will have to take it to 8 generations to say that it is what you say it is (and even then ther's gonna be variations).
 
So in essence:  we go to F8 because then it can be "guaranteed" that you will be getting what you supposed to if you grow my seeds.  I sure don't want to buy Cultivar x and grow it out to find that I have a whole bunch of non-conformance.
 
You can't have a name for something if it is not something to begin with.  A Yellow 7 Pot is a Yellow 7 Pot, not a mystery x.  You can't have a store offering mystery x's - cos next year your mystery x's are gonna be something else.  So stabilising is creating a product.

KrakenPeppers said: "You know too much about various forms of infertility and selective breeding across a plethora of life forms"

As a kid, i spent my summers ripping tastles off corn for Pioneer Seed company for minimum wage.  First interest was wondering why in the hell am I doing this.  Today, I raise critters.  Did you know that on very rare occasions a goat and a sheep can parent a thing they call a geep?  My daughter told me this after I told her our billy goat and lamb couldnt make babies.  Damn that Internet, making fathers look stupid.

F1 being infertile - I remember a video with Ed Currie where he comments that he hates the seeds getting stuck in his teeth.  I imagine he would like a seedless (immature not hard seeds) pepper.  Myself, I want a seedless blackberry plant.  Just propagate the thing threw cuttings and roots.  So yes, I think a mule pepper would have application.

F1 fruit not changing - I have believed this for much time.  I grow seed stock in isolation, but haven't been very protective of peppers being grown for produce purposes in the past.  A couple years ago, I had some sweet banana develop a kick.  They were only in the row close to some habanero, but since I have read that a cross wont effect the fruit I figured I just mixed up labels between some of the hot banana and the sweet banana.  Last year, I was sure to plant the sweet banana far away from anything hot.  Nobody wants to buy a sweet bell and have that surprise.  Especially if they are not washing their hands when prepping them.  One of the sweet banana plants produce both typical banana peppers as well as a bell pepper.  So I do think the fruit of a pepper plant that cross pollinates can change.

I know for a fact that the fruit of other plants will change with cross pollination.  I grew cucaloups one year.  Cucumbers n Cantaloup.  At first thought cool, I got me some sandwich sized cucumbers.  Nope, tasted horrible.  Second thought, I am dumb.

So yes, I wonder why it is that with regular garden seed people gobble up the hybrids that do not breed true but with super hot peppers the bell that folk want rung is F8 stability.  Maybe it is the price of super hot seeds or the sometimes rarity of them, but I do think that people interested in super hots kind of gravitate towards seed saving.

RobStar - Good catch on the large scale folk being the main people to sell F1.  So much so that when people interested in heirloom seed, they sometimes think a hybrid will never breed true.  I wonder if the practice of creating and selling F1s might not be an industry way of insuring people wont seed save.

But on first generations of a cross not being predictable, I am going to have to disagree to a point.  Yes, in the majority of instances you are dead on.  But there are many hybrids which are sold as F1 in other seeds as you observed.  They are very predictable in that first generation from seed, just not later.  I have speculated that this is actually a technique large industry uses to prevent seed saving.  Now consider this really odd sort of cross.

One school of Kosher thought states that the muscovy duck is not Kosher due to the bumps / blemishes on its face.  Ah, but the meat of the muscovy duck is much different than any other duck.  It tastes like roast beef.  So there exists an industry in Israel and probably elsewhere which crosses muscovy with mallards.  The result is a mule duck which does not have the blemishes of the muscovy but does have the taste of roast beef.

On the mystery x pepper, I agree.  But I think that as the garden seed industry is virtually led by crosses which have predictable behavior but do not breed true and as there is an industry doing the same with critters, that there are peppers out there that can be crossed once and have predictable and likely desirable results.  Just not generationaly.

In fact, I have noticed Burpee is now slapping the word "Heirloom" on some of their peppers to indicate you can seed save.  Willing to bet that since it is such a great sales term these days that the Burpee peppers that do not say "Heirloom" on them will not be stable after a generation, but the seeds them selves certainly are.  Then again, could be yet another advertising thing that means nothing.