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Old July 27, 2008   #2
carolyn137
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Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a
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Big Beef (PSX 76186) - Breeder and vendor: Petoseed. Characteristics: large fruited, indeterminate Beefsteak type, earlier, more productive and much more disease resistant than Beefsteak or Ponderosa Red. Resistance: verticillium wilt race 1, fusarium wilt races 1 and 2, alternaria stem canker, gray leaf spot, nematodes, tobacco mosaic virus. Similar: Better Boy, Beefmaster. 1991.

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Jeff, above is the blurb about Big Beef F1 from the NCSU Cultivar list.

You aren't going to find the parental inputs to this variety, or any hybrid b'c that's proprietary information that's not published.

it sounds to me that they might have just upgraded Beefsteak, aka Red ponderosa, aka Crimson Cushion by breeding in some disease tolerant genes.

And of course some of those disease tolerances are only meaningful if someone is growing in an area where they are found. And even at that tolerance does not mean resistance and often it gives the plant just a week or two more which is fine for commercial growers since it gives enough time for the Brix readings to reach the proper amount of soluble sugars.

There is an OP version of Big Beef that 's listed in the SSE Yearbooks and apprently it was dehybridized by 1998.

And I wanted to ask what disease resistance you're talking about in OH b'c most of those disease tolerances listed for Big beef wouldn't really apply to OH b'c the diseases aren't found there.

How I wish we had some great varieties that were tolerant to the most common fungal and bacterial foliage diseases, but we don't. And it's those foliage diseases that almost everyone has problems with. Sigh.

Hope that helps.
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