I'm also growing three other Brandywine-types to compare to them:

- Brandywine OTV (hasn't sprouted yet)

- Brandywine Pink (sprouted abundantly, but later)

- Yellow Brandywine (hasn't sprouted yet)

Wow, it's been 8 years since this post began! Great to hear about your F11 Brandy Boy seeds! I save seeds for purposes of shortages but always purchase 1 current packet of Brandy Boy from Burpees every year. Yes, we still grow Brandy Boy every single year in our Greenhouse! It is our all time favorite, even though I experiment also with different varieties every year, trying to find something I like better. So far, that hasn't happened - I'm Happy!

Youre F11 is still producing a bit less round tomatoes in comparison with Brandyboy F1?

Does someone know how the comparison is between Brandyboy Fxx and Brandywine?

@Rdb Tuinieren

I'm not the person who started the thread. My F11s are still seedlings, but my F10 seemed about the same as the F1 in fruit shape, if I recall correctly. I got the F10 seed from john11840. The OP had F9s, probably from the same person. However, there's no guarantee they had the same fruit-shape as mine, as John may (or may not) have used seeds from different lines of his Brandy Boy for different people to which he gave seeds. Fruit-shape can vary slightly within the same variety (and even the same plant), too, and growing conditions can also affect it; so, I wouldn't be too worried about that. But, it is something to watch for, if it's consistent, of course.

Checking my pictures, my F10s looked kind of like a mix between the two, and my F1 actually looked like the OP's F9 (far less ribbing, and taller than the OP's F1).

Glad to hear good reports from my Brandy Boy seeds. I finally lost the strain at F16. I still grow them from commercial seed. My new experiment this year is the dwarf project varieties from Victory Seeds. I can grow those in pots on my deck.

Rdb

I have grown every strain of Brandywine except Brandywine Black (growing Black this year, already growing in my greenhouse). Brandy Boy and Brandywine are so similar (regardless of the Fxx) that I can’t tell the difference in taste! But when it comes to how aggressive the plants grow and production, Brandy Boy is far superior to all of the Brandywine strains - IMO. My favorite Brandywine strain is the Sudduth strain, but Brandy Boy is for sure my favorite. We grow it every year!!!

Very interesting. This year i will grow these varieties for comparison:

Brandywine Sudduth

Brandywine Sudduth Strain

Brandywine Yellow

Brandywine Black

Brandywine Red

Brandywine Landis Vally Strain

Brandywine Cowlicks

Black Beauty

Black krim

Glacial Zebra

Xanadu green goddess

Sungreen 4029 (extreem zoet)

@hudson___wy can u tell more about you’re comparison between the Brandywine varieties?

Like vigor, taste, production, size, shape, etc.

@John A Why and how did u lose the F16 Brandyboy?

Ps. I would like to test the F10 Brandyboy seeds.

Rbd

In my opinion, Brandy Boy is an heirloom and seeds can be saved and planted to F-infininfinity!

In my soil, greenhouse & climate, Brandy Boy is a more vigerous plant, has more blossoms per truss, sets fruit easier, same fruit size, same fruit appearance, but yet has the similar (if not identical) taste and disease resistance as Brandywine varieties! I no longer have a reason to grow Brandywine! Brandy Boy is a step above Brandywine - IMO

BrandBrandywine Yellow

Brandywine Cowlicks

BraBrandywine OTV

BranBrandywine Sudduth

Brandy Boy

RBD - I had 2 bad years in a row and didn't get any fruit worth saving seed. I didn't worry too much about it since the new commercial seed produces fruit almost the same. If anyone could send me F-10 or higher seed I would start them again.

Hudson - I agree with everything you said EXCEPT Brandy Boy can't be considered an heirloom. I also like the Brandywine Sudduths. I've gotten good crops of Brandywine OTV also but their taste doesn't compare to the Brandy Boys or Sudduths.

@hudson___wy did u notice some difference between Brandywine Sudduth and Brandywine Sudduth Strain?

@John A how many F2 plants did u use to select the best seeds ?

Brandywine OTV is not a heirloom, is a new variety from a cross with Brandywine.

You’re right - I should have said that Brandy Boy is OP, just like Heirlooms.

:) We understand. i make also a lot of this kind 'mistakes" if mistake is the correct word?

Hi there everyone. I am back. So is Brandy Boy in my garden. This time from the seeds that I saved from F1 plant few years ago..

I remember back then somebody contacted Burpee and they said that Brandy Boy is stabilized. So it is an OP.

I hope to follow up on this later in the season. I have planted about a week ago.

@hudson___wy

What diseases did Brandy Boy resist that Brandywine didn't? Edit: I found out that according to aris on Dave's Garden, it's supposed to resist Verticillium wilt, Fusarium wilt, TMV, and Nematodes. Anecdotally, according to another Dave's Garden reviewer, it may resist early blight, too.

Just for the record, I split up my Brandy Boy F11s into individual cells (they were overseeded in a single cell), and I planted another cell of Brandy Boy F11. So, I should be growing a number of plants (I'll probably give some away, too). I split up the F2s, as well.

@John A

I can mail you some seeds.

I transplanted the Brandy Boy F11s, today. I had four cells of plants that made it.

(I initiallly over-seeded only one, but I split it up into several plants, some of which died; and I overseeded another cell, so I could have one with uninterrupted roots. I got four transplants out of those.) All the F11s are close to each other.

I transplanted the F2s on Saturday morning, in a different location.

@John A I sent you a PM about the seeds. I'm not sure if you got it.

Sorry, I didn't get your PM. You can send me an email at john11840@currently.com.

@John A Email sent.

I have no experience with Brandy Boy yet, but given your experiences I think that the F1 for fruit color, shape and taste are quite homozygous and therefore no serigation occurs.

The other requirements such as disease resistances could be heterozygous and you could have lost some of them in the F9 and up?

@Rdb Tuinieren It's possible, of course, but you won't know until someone with the specific diseases/pests handy tries it. On the upside, however, if it does have stabilized disease/pest-resistance then it'll have two copies of each gene, and I suppose it'll have even stronger disease-resistance than the F1 (unless it was stable in the F1, which is a possibility).

@John A Do you remember how many F2 and F3 plants you used and from which you selected the next generation?

Do you also suffer from certain diseases presure that are not present in the Brandy Boy F9 and later?

Does anyone know which disease resistance Brandy Boy F1 has?

That was 15 years ago but I just remember the Brandy Boys were less prone to all diseases than any of my others. I like to grow a variety, so normally I would grow 2 BBs, one from the later generation and one F1 for comparison.

@Rdb Tuinieren Verticillium wilt, Fusarium wilt, TMV, and Nematodes.

My largest Brandy Boy F11 set a fruit that I noticed today. It has loads of blossoms (I think about 36 flowers per truss, too). It's been hot today and yesterday; so, it can set fruit in the dry heat. (Not all varieties do.)

One of my F2s set fruit first (the others haven't, yet). I'm guessing it set last week some time, but I don't know.

Regular Brandywine Pink is growing nicely and has lots of flowers, but no fruit, yet.

Another F2 set fruit yesterday.

One of my F2s began to succomb to a disease; so, I pulled it up. I think it was Verticillium wilt.

Brandywine Pink set a few fruits, by today.

Two of the other Brandywine F11s set fruit by today. The youngest one (seeded later) hasn't set fruit, yet, and currently has the smallest plant of the four. Both of the remaining F2s have set fruit.

So maybe u found the segregation for disease resistance in the F2 BrandyBoy population?

It's possible. :) It's also possible that it's a different kind of Verticillium than they were bred against (there are only two species the industry generally breeds official resistance for). Or maybe the plant just had higher disease pressure.

So, last year, there was Verticillium pressure in the garden. The Brandy Boy F2s didn't fare so well. The Brandy Boy F11s were affected to a degree (one plant more than the others), but not as much as the F2s. (They didn't seem as resistant as Roma VF, though.) One of my F11s got a combination of viruses that made the fruits look really nice (I'm pretty sure one of the viruses was TSWV). It was pretty cool; it still produced well and the foliage was fine. The fruit was perfectly edible. Taste of the F11s was decent. I didn't save seeds. We got a fair amount of tomatoes from the F11s (but not from the F2s).

The F2s weren't as susceptible to Verticillium as Frog Princess, and a few other plants, though.

Regular Brandywine Pink did great. It had some foliar symptoms of verticillium on the lower leaves, but no wilt (only one of the Brandy Boy F11s had some wilt, but not very much). No discernable viruses. It produced fine, and even in the heat, surprisingly. It got some big fruit. I saved seeds from the largest fruit. Brandy Boy F11 had more taste, though. I'm trying Brandywine Pink from those saved seeds again; we'll see if the taste improves this year.

Brandy Boy sets fruits in the heat just fine, too, by the way. (Brandywine Pink, however, doesn't exactly have a reputation for its heat-setting ability; so, that's partly why I was surprised.)

Note that Brandywine Pink was closer to the house, and the plants closer to the house seemed less bothered by Verticillium for some unknown reason.

So the F11 did better as the F2? And how was the comparison with the F1?

I didn't grow the F1 that year. I have grown the F1, but it got a late start, and there wasn't high Verticillium or virus pressure that year. I also didn't fertilize the F1 significantly, and I did fertilize the F2s and the F11s. However, if I am to compare anyway, the F1 had smaller and fewer fruits, but healthier plants than the F11s. The F1 had a healthier plant than the F2s, and more harvested fruit than the F2s, but probably smaller fruit and less total production (if we count fruits that weren't terribly usable). I'm guessing the F1 would have been awesome if it had been started earlier and fertilized.

Yes, the F11s did much better than the F2s. The soil might have been part of the difference, though. They were in different parts of the garden.

I should probably try the F1 again some time.