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Branywine question.

19 years ago

I'm wondering which kind of PL Brandywine I'm growing. I was looking at the tomato growers supply and noticed that they had many different types like Amish, Red, and Sudduth's. I got mine from a local nursery here in Santa Clara, and the labels on the plants just said Brandywine. The fruit on my plants are still green and are setting many fruit and are for sure some what flat and rigid with green shoulders. Any ideas of what this strain might be? I can also snap a picture if need be.

Comments (12)

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I was looking at the tomato growers supply and noticed that they had many different types like Amish, Red, and Sudduth's. I got mine from a local nursery here in

    ******

    There's:

    Brandywine
    Red Brandywine
    Yellow Brandywine
    Black Brandywine
    Purple Brandywine, aka Marizol Bratka
    OTV Brandywine

    Without going into the background of all of those, if something is labelled just Brandywine, it should be a large pink beefsteak with PL foliage.

    If it's IDed as Brandywine (Sudduth or Sudduth/Quisenberry) then it's a strain of Brandywine that many folks like.

    There is no Amish Brandywine and the only Brandywine that's been documented to be of Amish origin is Red Brandywine, and Red Brandywine is RL and has, obviously, red fruits.

    There are three Red Brandywines listed at TGS. Two are listed together and neither one is Red Brandywine, which is why Linda at TGS got the one that has Landis as part of the title name, and says it's a strain, but it's not. The Landis Museum was the source for that variety. There are no strains of Red Brandywine.

    So if the plant you got at the nursery was labelled Brandywine it should be PL and have large pink beefsteak type fruits. Had it been labelled Brandywine ( Sudduth) it would have been known to be that particular strain of Brandywine.

    And many places offer seed or plants for Brandywine and don't know if it's the Suddth strain, although it could well be.

    Carolyn

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Well I will be so disappointed if it is not Sudduth. lol
    So I'm guessing there are no specific characteristics in the fruit or the plants to help determine what strain it may be. Well I guess I could call the nursery and ask about them, there is an idea!

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Well I guess I could call the nursery and ask about them, there is an idea!

    *****

    Please see the last sentence in my post above, as in, if a place knows what strain they have they'll say so. ( smile)

    Since your plants were labelled Brandywine and nothing else they don't know anything more. But as I said, it could be the Sudduth strain and no, there's no way you'd know the Sudduth strain from unlablled Brandywines unless you grew the two at the same time in the same season.

    Carolyn

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Thank you!

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Do all the different brandywine come from the original pink brandywine?
    And the different brandywine(Red Brandywine,Yellow Brandywine,
    Black Brandywine, Purple Brandywine, OTV ) are a result of selection and genetic mutations?

    Or have they been cross with another plant? If so shouldn't they have a different names?

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Here's a link for a history of the different brandywines.

    If they didn't label the type of brandywine, I would guess it's probably going to be a pink brandywine, sudduth or something similar.

    Here is a link that might be useful: history

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Do all the different brandywine come from the original pink brandywine?
    And the different brandywine(Red Brandywine,Yellow Brandywine,
    Black Brandywine, Purple Brandywine, OTV ) are a result of selection and genetic mutations?
    Or have they been cross with another plant? If so shouldn't they have a different names?

    *****

    Since I also contributed to the article written by Craig that doof linked to, more specifically the non-family Brandywine ones, I'll just quickly summarize here and you can read Craig's article for a more detailed discussion, especially of the family type ones.

    No, all the various varieties with brandywine as part of the name did not come from the pink as far as we know.

    Brandywine, pink and PL
    Yellow Brandywine, yellow and PL
    Red Brandywine, red and RL

    The above three are considered family type heirlooms. The only one with a documented Amish heritage is Red Brandywine, from the late 1800's in PA near the Brandywine River Valley

    Black Brandywine, the result of a natural cross between Brandywine and an unknown black that occurred in the growing fields of Seeds by Design in CA, and genetically dehybridized to the OP state although it is still somewhat unstable for some who grow it.

    Purple Brandywine, aka Marizol Bratka, was deliberately bred by Joe Bratka between Brandywine and Marizol Purple and the hybrid genetically dehybridized to the OP state.

    OTV Brandywine, the result of a natural cross between Yellow Brandywine and an unknown other parent. The hybrid was genetically dehybrizied to the OP state.

    No genetci mutations were involved with the above three. And in each case Brandywine of one kind or another was involved, hence the word Brandywine as part of the name of each variety.

    Carolyn

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Fascinating stuff :)
    Let me vulgarize what I understand.
    (I apologize in advance since what I will be stating is probably completely inaccurate but that's a summary of what I understand)

    From Burpee's catalog (1882) it describes brandywine as a red tomato.The origin of the seed source is unknown.
    I find it fascinating that the illustration shows flowers that are very similar to the flowers of my brandywine I'm growing (pink).Of course one cannot identify a tomato by the flowers.
    The leaves on the illustration appears to be a RL.

    So for a purest the real brandywine is the red RL brandywine.
    From the current seeds available from victory seeds catalogs, we have a red brandywine with RL leaves which from the photo looks very similar to the illustration of the Burpee's catalog.

    The pink PL, Yellow RL and PL are family heirlooms and probably have been crossed with another plant at some point but one cannot draw any conclusion from lack of information.

    The Black Brandywine, Purple Brandywine and OTV Brandywine have all been cross on purpose or by accident.
    I'm surprised that a known brandywine cross can still be called brandywine X.
    Once a tomato is cross and stabilized it becomes a new variety and IMHO should have a different name to avoid confusion.

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    BINGO!!!

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    This is far from scientific, since I am only growing out 1 sample of each this year, but I am growing Brandywine(pink) and Brandywine Sudduth's, side by side. Whatever type Burpee sells in the heirloom packs, does well here. And yes, it is pink and PL. This is my second year growing it, and I will probably continue to do so. The regular Brandywine is more compact, slightly stunted compared to the Sudduth's strain. And, the regular Brandywine is setting much more fruit. The Sudduth's grows like a weed, but drops blossoms like crazy. Both show about the same disease resistance, which can be described as fair to good, but far less than any hybrid I'm growing.

  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    From Burpee's catalog (1882) it describes brandywine as a red tomato.The origin of the seed source is unknown.
    I find it fascinating that the illustration shows flowers that are very similar to the flowers of my brandywine I'm growing (pink).Of course one cannot identify a tomato by the flowers.
    The leaves on the illustration appears to be a RL.

    *****

    I think I've seen scans of that Burpee picture, but I'm not sure. Brandywine being red with RL would be expected to ba around in 1882. And that's b'c Tom Hauch of Heirloom Seeds, who was the first one to get RB out of the SSE Yearbook and offer it commercially, gave seeds of it to Steve Miller at the Landis Museum in PA and Steve contacted the original RB lister from whom TOm got his seeds and that person Ided it as being from Lancaster Co,PA, Amish, and available around 1885.

    And you didn't mention the Johnson and Stokes picture of Brandywine, the one that specified no color but WWW ided it as being Brandywine and says they were the first to introduce it. Of course Burpee also says they were the first and it was Mikado that was renamed. Sigh.

    (So for a purest the real brandywine is the red RL brandywine.)

    I guess all I can say is that there is a variety called REd Brandywine and it is RL and dates to the early 1880's. Since the initial availability of the Yellow and Pink are quite unknown I'm not willing to say that RB was the FIRST Brandywine known, rather, it's the only one that we do have some time data for.

    ******
    From the current seeds available from victory seeds catalogs, we have a red brandywine with RL leaves which from the photo looks very similar to the illustration of the Burpee's catalog.

    I can't comment b'c I can't remember the details of either the Burpee 1882 or Johnson and Stokes catalog pictures and blurbs, so I asked Craig if he had time if he would comment.

    ******
    The pink PL, Yellow RL and PL are family heirlooms and probably have been crossed with another plant at some point but one cannot draw any conclusion from lack of information.

    About 95% of ALL varieties are thought to have arisen from natural X pollinations and the hybrids genetically dehybridized to the OP state. And true, we know practically nothing about the yellow and pink other than when they first became available to growers viz the SSE Yearbook in most cases.

    But what is a Yellow Brandywine RL? I mean I've never heard of an RL YB.

    *******
    The Black Brandywine, Purple Brandywine and OTV Brandywine have all been cross on purpose or by accident.

    I outlined those above b'c their origin is known.

    Purple Brandywine, aka Marizol Bratka was deliberately bred and the Black and OTV were the result of natural X pollinations.

    ******
    I'm surprised that a known brandywine cross can still be called brandywine X.
    Once a tomato is cross and stabilized it becomes a new variety and IMHO should have a different name to avoid confusion.

    The confusion started long ago with Yellow Brandywine,for instance. More recently there have been some varieties introduced with brandywine as part of the name. I can think of two reasons why. The most obvious to me is that in each case Brandywine was one parent. Less obvious is the fact that using the name Brandywine as part of the new name is trading off on the perceived excellence of Brandywine.

    I've only dehybridized two hybrids to the OP state. One was what we know now as OTV Brandywine which was due to a cross in Craig's garden. It seemed natural enough at the time to name it Brandywine ( one parent being YB) something, and since Craig and I were at the time publishing a newsletter about heirloom tomatoes called Off the Vine (OTV) it also seemed natural to include that as part of the name indicating that each of us had a hand in making it available to others.

    I sent out F2 and F3 seed of Ramapo, and never did name it this or that, just offered F2 Ramapo and F3 Ramapo and have no idea if anyone is or is not going to rename it. Personally I think there's nothing at all wrong with retaining the original name of a variety and adding something else so it doesn't stand alone.

    Based on your concerns about new names, etc., I feel the same way about those who have RL and PL versions of the same variety. In another thread here I talked about that and raised the question of whether Cherokee Purple, for instance, was identical to CP Potato Leaf, and explained my reasons why, having to do with a single spontaneous mutation vs other possible DNA changes that could lead to changes other than the leaf form change.

    In other words, is the PL variant of an original RL always identical in all ways except for leaf form.

    Lots to think about as I said there, and same for here as well.

    Carolyn


  • 19 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    >>But what is a Yellow Brandywine RL? I mean I've never heard of an RL YB.

    Sorry my error.

    Once again thanks for clarifying. It really adds fun to growing BW when you know a bit more of the history behind it.

    Now I got to order more seeds :
    Yellow Brandywine
    Red Brandywine RL
    Mikado
    Pomme Rouge de Montpellier French heirloom from 1793

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