Originally Posted by AKmark
Karen, great question. I do sell plants, and eventually would like the bulk of my plant sales to be my own stuff, and varieties from friends too. I also sell the classic heirlooms and hybrids also. I have Mat-Su, and Ak Sunrise and Sunset F6 F7, and a couple semi stable, and a bunch of crosses, F1 -F3. Sherry has several in the F6- F7 range, and many semi stable too. You will really like the stuff she is doing, all are very early and have good tastes, and they are so different from each other.
Anyway, to answer your question the best I can with limited experience. I cannot quite capture the earliness, and perfect shaped fruit of Brandywine x Bloody Butcher F1, and they are tasty too. The later generations look more like a typical heirloom with a little irregular shapes, are bigger, are also almost a week later to ripen, but they do taste a bit better to me.
On another note, for me the F1 negates BB. Maybe for a super early good tomato, that's as early, has a perfect shape, tastes better, and is bigger than BB, the F1 may be hard to beat. So I think it is up to the grower, you may choose a different one than I would. If we are dealing with good tomatoes, most offspring is pretty good too, in many combinations also.
A couple other semi stable ones are, PL Black Krim x PL Early Girl. The F1 is much earlier than the F4's, but I like the taste of three different versions that have been segregated better than the F1. Since EG is a hybrid, I had a few variations to select from, everything from small red tomatoes to purple beefsteaks, a very fun cross to tinker with. The F1 is more consistent, even though a hybrid was used, but I really like the semi stable ones.
BB X Dester follows the same pattern..
I am not sure if a pattern is clear though, but capturing that exact F1 has been tough for me. Personally I like stabilizing them, and think there are many opportunities in growing out crosses to get something that is good, and different.
Sherry may have an opinion on this, she has a few lines she has stabilized.
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