Brandy Boy F5 report
 

From what I can tell so far, BB F5 seems to be stable and comparable to BB F1 in all important respects. I'm growing two plants. Seeds were from Mischka, as he has been working with this for a while. Plant habit, # of fruit set, fruit size/shape/locules, and taste, etc. are indistinguishable from F1 for both plants.

Will try and post pics later when I have some more that fully ripen. I ate and/or saved seeds from the first few posthaste, and didn't bother to take pics yet.

Suze, Mischka said he had some reds coming out of saved BB seed.

What happened to those in terms of following through?

And since red is dominant to pink how could a red be a parent?

OK, I'll confess that I've never understood the possible parentage of BB from what folks have posted about saved seeds in the past.

Isn't this a cross between Brandywine and Better Boy? I remember hearing about it before last year for the first time.

I'd bet a backcross to the Brandywine would make a pretty decent F1...or not. Just musing.
;)

[quote=carolyn137;101030]Suze, Mischka said he had some reds coming out of saved BB seed.

What happened to those in terms of following through?

And since red is dominant to pink how could a red be a parent?

OK, I'll confess that I've never understood the possible parentage of BB from what folks have posted about saved seeds in the past.[/quote]

Carolyn, I confess total ignorance on this one. If M mentioned getting some reds at some point in time, I either missed it, or have slept since then. :) He'll have to elaborate on what he may have ended up with (and decided to select for) with during his various growouts. My understanding is that during the selection process, he was growing BB F1 every yr for a point of reference/comparison in making his selections. But again, he'll have to elaborate.

These F5 seeds were sent to me as something that he felt was stable or fairly stable in terms of being an OP version of Brandy Boy, which we have both grown and liked. That is also what I am seeing so far with my spring growout of two plants each of BB F1 and BB F5.

[quote=organichris;101034]Isn't this a cross between Brandywine and Better Boy? I remember hearing about it before last year for the first time.

I'd bet a backcross to the Brandywine would make a pretty decent F1...or not. Just musing.
;)[/quote]

Chris, just b'c of the name Brandy Boy lots of folks have suggested that the two parents might be Brandywine and Better Boy, but there's absolutely no way to know that and there never will be without DNA restriction analysis.:)

Carolyn,

I grew out 9 or ten Brandy boy F2 last fall and none were red. Parentage is nearly certainly two pink PL. I am trying for what ever looks good that comes out of this cross, not just a replica of BB(although it is awesome). What Ive seen... Variable fruit size, ribbing, and DTM. All tasted great.The one I will be growing ten of this fall is from a plant that produced nothing but 1lb+ excellent pinks(16 or so). We will see how the F3 turns out. I have another that was really early and superb on the small side 6-8 oz. Don't got enough room to work with this one, but if any dedicated Tvillain wants to give it a shot PM me.

Vince

[quote]Chris, just b'c of the name Brandy Boy lots of folks have suggested that the two parents might be Brandywine and Better Boy, but there's absolutely no way to know that and there never will be without DNA restriction analysis.:)[/quote]

Wow. I remember chatting someone on here last year who had grown it (I can't remember who), but I thought she (I remember that much) told me it was a hybrid of the two. Maybe she was under the same assumption. If memory serves she said it had some of the Brandywine taste without the fussiness. I was kind of interested because I was having a hard time with Brandywine. At the time I was strictly growing heirlooms.

But now that I think of it, isn't Better Boy an F1 anyway? If it is a mix of the two, it seems that the Better Boy would have had to been inbred for it to be stable enough to produce a uniform F1 with the Brandywine. Am I right about this? This is all theoretical anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. I am a total amateur when it comes to breeding tomatoes.

Yes, Better Boy is an F1. So is Big Boy an F1. So is Ultra Boy an F1. Lots of boys out there.;)

But my point is, knowing George Ball at Burpee, that no parentage will ever be revealed as is true with all other proprietary F1 hybrids developed. I'm pretty sure that Peto Seed, now a part of Seminins, probably does the Burpee hybrids but the same would be true of other hybrids developed by Peto, Novartis, Sakata, and on and on.

It's a rough world out there competition wise so that's why parental genetic inputs are never revealed.

Just go to Google, enter NCSU cultivars, scroll down to tomatoes and take a look.:)

Wow! I hit print before I checked how long that list was! That's some air travel reading material! Thanks for the link Carolyn

Suze, I did some searching trying to find mention of a red BB fruit and I'm not done yet, but below is a post that Mischka wrote back in 2006:


I didn't see your post Craig. ( Craig was asking if BB was really hybrid, CJM)

I can tell you that it is a hybrid from what I've seen here.

I grew 10 F2 plants last year. I don't have my notes handy but I do remember that 4 of the plants were RL with fruits similar to Eva Purple Ball.

2 of the plants were almost identical to the F1's - I saved seed from these.

I plan on growing 10 F3's this year; weather and God willing. :wink:

*****

Getting out RL plants from BB I've referred to before. How come? Lots of conjecture in this thread mainly from 2006 with no resolution.

Carolyn, I checked out some of the NCSU web pages having to do with tomatoes. They certainly do have a lot of legal restrictions and forms and whatnot. I understand they are protective of their work, but I really don't agree with corporations owning plant genetics.

I am convinced, purely from tasting (which I realize is not empirical evidence), that Brandy Boy is derived from Brandywine, but is not Brandywine in a new wrapper.

The fact that the two plants look so similar (Brandy Boy leaves have a bit more serration, the larger leaves look like oven mitts vs. the Brandywine leaves which are completely rounded), and have the same growth habits.

Brandy Boy has an excellent flavor, but not identical to Brandywine.

The fact that Mischka and Suze have both grown F1 and F5 side-by-side and found them to be identical tells me that either Brandy Boy is NOT a hybrid and they are just pulling our leg (and our wallet to the tune of $2.50 for 10-15 seeds), or it is a hybrid with so little variation in the F2, that there is really no reason to buy seeds of it again.

So now I am down to being dependent on the seed companies for just Jet Star and Sungold. :)

By the way, Brandywine and Brandy Boy which are 3 plants apart in my garden, each have 10 fruit including ones I've picked. The Brandywine fruits are monstrous in comparison. Brandy Boy has yet to distinguish itself from Brandywine for me as far as noticeably increased productivity.

[quote=Suze;101024]From what I can tell so far, BB F5 seems to be stable and comparable to BB F1 in all important respects. I'm growing two plants. Seeds were from Mischka, as he has been working with this for a while. Plant habit, # of fruit set, fruit size/shape/locules, and taste, etc. are indistinguishable from F1 for both plants.

Will try and post pics later when I have some more that fully ripen. I ate and/or saved seeds from the first few posthaste, and didn't bother to take pics yet.[/quote]

Let me know how it goes Brandy boy made a spot in my garden after last year and will probably be there for a few years to come to having an OP version to try side by side would be nice.

[quote=organichris;101117]Carolyn, I checked out some of the NCSU web pages having to do with tomatoes. They certainly do have a lot of legal restrictions and forms and whatnot. I understand they are protective of their work, but I really don't agree with corporations owning plant genetics.[/quote]

Chris, I don't know which NCSU sites you were looking at b'c I was just referring to the Cultivar lists to show that the parentage of hybrids is not given.

The corporations don't own genetics at all. They spend lots of time and money developing the various OP accessions that are in each of the two breeding lines that result in modern F1's and there can be up to 4 individual parental inputs in each of those two lines.

I see no reason why they should divulge the specific parental inputs that they've developed for the simple reason that they're in business and the F1 tomato area is a HUGE business and very competetive. Especially in the Netherlands where most of the large commercial tomato breeders are.

So they don't own genetics at all, rather, it's the use of the varieties and strains and accessions that an individual company has that leads them to be able to develop what they do.

Does that make sense?:)

Hmm...Maybe I just misunderstood. Perhaps I could find the links and you could clarify what all those forms are for. I agree that they should be able to keep their breeding programs secret.

I do know that certain corporations (and that may not apply in this case) do claim ownership of the genetics of their plants - certain kinds of corn come to mind. I was just reading about a federal court case along this line. But maybe this was GM corn or something.