Open-pollinated is the description to look for if you want to save your own seeds.

Open-pollinated seeds come from relatively stable varieties resulting from pollination between genetically similar parents.  By saving seeds from the best open-pollinated plants, mankind has taken advantage of natural genetic recombination and mutation to improve agriculture for the past 10,000 years.  Gardeners can save seeds from open-pollinated varieties and be reasonably sure of growing plants similar to the original parents.  (See Basic Seed Saving for separation distances to prevent cross-pollination.)

On the other hand, seeds saved from hybrid and genetically modified varieties, the opposite of open-pollinated, present a complicated challenge for seed savers.  Only a small percentage of will resemble the orginal parents.  Some will be sterile.  Most are patented.  Saving seeds from some is now illegal.

Modern home gardeners have begun to rediscover the advantages of growing open-pollinated varieties.  Because they have been saved by gardeners and small farmers, the characteristics most desired by gardeners like regional adapatability, local disease and insect resistance, fresh-picked flavor, nutrition and longer harvesting periods are the ones that survived.

Open-pollinated seeds often cost less and offer gardeners a predictable path to save their own seeds.  When gardeners improve a variety from year to year  by selecting seeds from the varieties that do best in their own gardens, they gain the ability to take the best of their garden into the future and improve it year after year.

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