I gave up on Brandywine. Not worth it. There are other great tasting tomatoes.

Have you tried Brandy Boy? here is an internet report on Brandy Boy

'Brandy Boy'
Most tomato-lovers will cite 'Brandywine' as the best heirloom tomato, but it takes long to fruit and then doesn't yield many tomatoes. Last year 'Brandywine' was crossed with 'Better Boy'Âtruly one of the best-tasting, heaviest-producing, most disease-resistant hybrid tomatoesÂan inspired match which produced fruits with all the size, sweet-tangy taste, and thin-skin of 'Brandywine' and the abundant crop of 'Better Boy.' No weird science here. Just an amazing tomato that you need to grow. (75 days)

I'm probably not very far from you here in Northern Delaware. Same zone 7 too. The ONLY thing I can think of is your seed source??? I get my Brandywine seeds from Johnny's. And I NEVER have trouble with my plants. I also grow organic with plenty of compost. Currently my Brandywine plants are among the best looking plants I have and they are still producing like crazy. My Brandy plants went up about 2 feet higher than my 6foot tall Texas cages and are growing back down now. My experience with Sudduth Brandy is way different than many folks here who complain of low yield. Mine produce fine!

Also, as to the other comment about BrandyBoy. This is my second year growing it. It is an exellent variety! It produces about the same as Brandywine for me. Plants growing near each other show the same height/width. Both are huge bushy plants. (I seldom prune) But I give a slight edge in taste to Brandywine over BrandyBoy but it's close!

Last year 'Brandywine' was crossed with 'Better Boy'

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Other than Brandywine, the other parent(s) for Brandy Boy aren't known to the public and never will be b'c it's proprietary information. The "boy" part could just as well be Big Boy as Better Boy .

Better Boy is red, which is dominant to pink, and BB is RL, and PL is recessive, and some folks who have grown out Brandy Boy F2 seeds have gotten all pinks and some have gotten some pinks and some reds.

As far as Brandywine goes, it does have a unique taste, but so to me do Prue and Aunt Gertie's Gold and a few others.

I've never had any special problems with Brandywine and so think it's well worth growing. I grow only the Sudduth strain.

I have a hard time seeing that seed source is the problem unless the seeds yardenman is using have some seedborne pathogens.

Yardenman, all you've said is that the leaves start turning brown and dying from the bottom up. Are there any spots on those leaves that would indicate a foliage infection? If so could you please describe as to size, shape and color and whether there are any yellow halos when you first see the spots on a green leaf.

Any wilting when there shouldn't be ?

Is there anything different about where they are planted relative to other varieties? or how they are treated re water, amendments or anything else?

Was your seed source commercial or traded seeds?

Carolyn

Carolyn - I'm responding at 1 am so I can't take pictures til tomorrow. But I can say now that the Brandywine seeds were acquired commercially. They are alternated with cherokee purples which are doing just fine, they are red-plastic mulched to prevent soil splash-up, are watered only by soaker hose once per week and ph7 plant-happy pond water the other watering per week, and they are in raised beds so they drain well (they are mostly sheltered from real rain by overhanging roof).

I am an organic gardener. I've given them seaweed foliar sprays every 2 weeks, I dug 3 inches of organic compost into the soil when I planted the seedlings out.

I don't even go near them without washing my hands thoroughly! Pictures tommorrow... I'm thinking fusarium wilt but you can probably determine that better than I. Some of those viruses/fungals are hard to differentiate.

My other tomato heirlooms and nightshade family crops don't seem to be having much of a problem.

I tend to think that it may have something to do with temperature, humidity and climate. The same thing happens to my Brandywines. I just anticipate it, plant accordingly and try to not let it stress me. I also plant some Brandy Boy and just a few days ago took a cutting from Brandy Boy (along with Cherokee Purple and Aunt Gerties Gold and a couple of others) to root for a fall crop. From the looks of them, I will probably be able to put them into the ground at the end on this next week.

Quite a few of my old tomatoes that I planted in the spring seem to have made it through the worst of our summer and have put on , although some of them also have some yellow leaves. If I can keep the stink bugs under control, I should have some fall tomatoes.
Just my speculations.
Bill P.

Good information.

My Brandywines were not Sudduth.

Here are some pictures of my plants and leaves...

1. The early May planting. There are 4 across. Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, then ChP and BW again. The ChP are doing fine (there are a couple dead BW stems in the ChP cage).

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2. I planted out a 3rd BW in mid June, It is bearing well, but starting to die.

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3. The BW leaves begin to show problems like this.

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4. Then they progress to this.

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5. And finally to this before dying completely.

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It is really very frustrating to have the BW die early like this and I can't figure out why it is always them and not the Cherokee Purples, Prudens Purple or Caspian Pinks. Those get through to October (usually). I would suspect the soil, but the 3rd BW is in utterly new soil; even the compost I used for it has never seen a tomato before (or any of the family). They just die from the bottom up after 90 days and that is it!

Maybe it is just BW's, but if there is anything I'm doing wrong, I can't figure out what it is. Maybe next year I'll just plant 2 per month and pull them up when they are 1/2 dead. Or plant them in 10 gallon pots with new soil each year and solarize the soil (for use elsewhere) when they die.

Just as info, I don't compost any of my tomato plants and I make my own seedling soil from fresh material each year. I didn't even bother to save any of the BW seeds this year.

From the photo's and the time of the year indicated , it looks like a form of blight to me, all sudduth type Bw's are not disease resistant at all, and very weak in this department, but the other type of red Bw's are fairly resistant,

I had a simular problam on a TYW this year, and it was mainly due to the constant rain over watering them for two months, what I did to combat it was to strip off all the dead leaves and then feed with a good multi-mineral feed which does contain both Boron , and Molybdenum , this usually does the trick and new growth starts again at the top, BW Sudduths dont seem to like over watering during july and august, and are best left on the dry side until late august when the problem has past, in my experiance BW's Sudduth types are very fussy and finicky about the conditions and soil and where they grow,(some people have ideal conditions that suit them from the start) but the majority seem to give problems at some stage especially during july and august-if you keep them on the dry side and water only very sparingly (once a week very lightly) during these months- they usually get over it and survive.

At the moment I have got three Johnny's BW's growing in my greenhouse that have had no water whatsoever for at least two months, and still they grow,- simply because the crafty roots decided to go to the outside rim of the greenhouse and sip water from the main garden soil on the outside-under the edge of the greenhouse.

I've pretty much run out of things to try to control this problem. If anyone else has any suggestions, I'd sure like to hear them...