What Does It Mean When A Fruit Or Vegetable Is An 'Heirloom'?

When we think of heirlooms, we think of an inheritance or something passed down from generation to generation. Heirlooms have history, culture, and oral traditions associated with them. Heirloom seeds, therefore, are essentially seeds with an oral tradition and a legacy behind them. In the most traditional sense, heirloom fruits and vegetables are grown from seeds saved from prior crops, reflecting historical and pre-industrial farming methods. 

One way that heirloom seeds differ from hybrids is that heirloom seeds will produce the same quality of fruits or vegetables more reliably each season. You can also save heirloom seeds and replant them without a noticeable drop in quality. In contrast, you must purchase new hybrid seeds every planting season to get a decent-quality harvest. 

Unlike heirloom seeds, hybrid seeds are genetically modified and are usually crossbreeds between two different plant varieties. While heirloom seeds come from plants that reproduce through open pollination (the natural process where insects and air currents encourage plant growth), hybrid seeds are often created through controlled pollination and are sterile, meaning they cannot naturally reproduce. Seedless watermelons and grapes are examples of sterile hybrid fruits produced from crossbred species breeding, while certain types of heirloom cabbages, tomatoes, and chile peppers still reproduce through open pollination.

Heirloom seeds are considered valuable and, sometimes, preferable because they have more nuanced and complex flavors. The flavor profile of tomatoes grown from heirloom seeds is often described as more palatable and more what you'd expect an authentic tomato to taste like. Hybrid fruits and vegetables are said to be less flavorful and somewhat watered down compared to their heirloom counterparts.

Crossbreeding plants to create hybrids is a way to maximize the benefits of the two plants used, but this process makes the new variety unstable, meaning there is no way to predict which characteristics of the two original species will show up in the resulting crop. This is different from heirloom fruits and vegetables that have stable characteristics, although variation in heirloom crops is also controlled through agricultural culling. There is also more regional variety and less standardization among heirloom crops, making them better equipped to handle the local climate in which they originate. This can pose challenges for agricultural expansion, however.