I know the seeds are not available anywhere, but I am wondering why? Is it because Burpee does not want it out there to protect it from competitors? If I saved seeds from a big boy and was able to get a plant that that produced a pink tomato would that be considered a teddy jones? Anyone know anything about Teddy Jones characteristics? Taste, size....

Yes I know a lot about it.

I received a letter from an older SSE member years ago asking about Big Boy and Teddy Jones. I asked him how he knew that Teddy Joes was one of the parents and he told me that he'd read an article in a gardening magazine and the breeder of BB had said that one parent was TJ.

So I set out to find Dr. Schifriss, now deceased, and did thru a contact at Burpee and he was then at Rutgers working with squash.'' I started dehybridizing Big Boy to see if I could get out TJ and of 10 F2 BB plants set out I got only two that had pink fruits.

I don't want to spin this out too far. I'll just say that I was in close contact with Dr. S and he told me that the size of TJ was twice the size of what I'd gotten. And he also said that at best I could get out only about 80% of the TJ genes so I'd ***never have true TJ***, and with that I have to agree.

For a variety of reasons I didn't continue the selections but one could also use Better Boy F1 since one parent is also TJ/ When John Peto left Burpee he went to CA and formed Petoseed and also took seeds for TJ with him and it was in CA that BB F1 was bred.

I was also told by the SSE person who contacted me that he lived near the place where the folks raised TJ's each year and his family always bought plants. But when the SSE person came home from WWII he found that Burpee reps had bought all rights to TJ for $24, and with that $24 the fellow was able to build a small greenhouse. Burpee went throughout the midwest buying up rights to other OP's as well.

One day several years ago I got an e-mail from someone who had read online about my involvement with TJ and he said he was at Burpee and was in charge of growouts and said that TJ was one of the most sickly looking varieties and rotted easily.

TJ is a large pink beefsteak, indet, RL, and I have no idea what the pure TJ tastes like and nor does anyone else unless it's the folks at Petoseed b'c Burpee has not done any hybridizing in many years and I'm not sure they even keep it going.

It's no threat to Burpee nor to Petoseed if someone were to have TJ b'c the person would also have to know the other parent of BBoy or Better Boy in order to recreate those two hybrids. And no way will TJ ever become available to the public b'c of the long time excellent reputations for both BBoy and BEtter Boy.

So that's Teddy Jones. It was used to help impart taste to Big Boy, and I assume Better Boy as well, and the other parent of Big boy was used for "disease" tolerance.

Carolyn

Thanks for all the info. How did the few pink tomatoes you were able to produce taste? Are they worth growing?

Thanks for all the info. How did the few pink tomatoes you were able to produce taste? Are they worth growing?

****

I'm not quite sure how to answer your question. ( smile)

The small pink ones weren't anything special at all re taste, but then it was clear that they weren't that close to Teddy Jones either, so I can't make any conclusions at all about the taste of Teddy Jones from that.

I did save F3 seeds from the pinks but didn't go any further than that.

Carolyn

Carolyn, about how much did the pink f2 tomato you got weigh?

Carolyn, Thanks for all the help. Just one more question. Do you know of any other hybrids whose parent type is not commercially available that is worth growing? I am just looking for a bit of a project and to maybe eventually produce something that tastes good that I could not just go online and order.

Carolyn, about how much did the pink f2 tomato you got weigh?

****

I didn't weigh them Bill but I'm pretty good at estimating weights ( having done so before by weighing quite a few other fruits and then eyeballing them without weighing) and I'd say in the 6-8 oz range and shape was slightly oblate.

All the F2 plants were vigorous and had a heavy leaf cover so they didn't inherit the spindly weak plant habit that I referred to above that had been reported to me by the man who worked at Burpee.

Carolyn

Thanks, Carolyn.

Big Boy F2 sounds like something nice to pursue down the line ... or interesting anyway. I mean maybe for a recombination other than Teddy Jones, which doesn't sound all that special except for flavor ... since there are plenty of large pink tomatoes that taste great and aren't "sickly looking varieties that rot easily." Of course the same can be said for 6 - 8 ounce tomatoes, I guess. So why bother at all, huh?

Carolyn, Thanks for all the help. Just one more question. Do you know of any other hybrids whose parent type is not commercially available that is worth growing? I am just looking for a bit of a project and to maybe eventually produce something that tastes good that I could not just go online and order.

*****

We know the parents of just a few of the eariest hybrids developed , that is, those that had only two parents.

More modern hybrids can have up to 8 parental inputs, 4 in each of the breeding lines that leads up to the final cross that forms the desired hybrid.

And the parental inputs of those is never revealed b/c it's proprietary information not shared publicaly.

If you want to create something that is unique, I think your best bet is to create your own hybrid by crossing two OP varieties that appeal to you.

The parents of many of the earlier OP varieties were made by crossing two varieties and making selections and if that interests you that's another way to go b'c in several cases the two parents that went into creating the original hybrid before selections are made are known.

But doing that may not be as creative, although it's a challenge to get the right selection, as making your own cross between two known OP's that you like to form a hybrid and then growing out that F1 seed to form F1 plants, all of which should be identical, and then saving seed from the F1 fruits to get F2 seed and then growing out that seed to initially see what you get, and then saving seed from those plants whose fruits and plant habit and fruit taste appeal to you.

Or you could stop at the F1 seed formation alone and use just those F1 seeds for as long as they last.

Several folks here and at other sites have made their own crosses to form the hybrid and then done just as I've noted above, that is, going on to make selections from the F2 or F3 growout.

One example is Hoosier, who posts here and Bill crossed Brandywine with Neves Azorean Red to make the hybrid and he distributed seeds, I think some hybrid, but mostly F2 seeds, for others to work on as he himself has continued to do. And now there are several interesting and tasty selections from that cross and there are several threads here about that cross.

A friend of mine crossed Galina with Black Krim quite a few years ago and sent me some of the F1 seeds from that cross and I distributed F2 seeds to many here at GW when I used to do seed offers here.

Another friend crossed two varieties and liked the F1 hybrid so much that he sent seeds to both Craig and I and it was a great variety until the F1 seeds ran out. LOL

So there are several avenues that you can pursue in terms of creating something that would be unique.

Carolyn

Well I ended up picking up a big boy from Home depot that is a great looking plant. I think I am going to try to save a few seeds from some early big boys that I should get in a few months and try to plant a few for a late season crop and hope at least one plant makes pink fruits. Even if they won't be Tommy jones it will be interesting to see if I get lucky with a pink fruit.

I am also going to try crossing cherokee purple and NAR just to see if I am able to actually get a cross.

Hmm. If Teddy Jones was one of the parents of both Better Boy F1 and Big Boy F1, then you can probably look for dominant traits that are not common to both tomatoes and know that those traits are not from Teddy Jones. Do we know the other parents for those two hybrids?

Nevermind my question about the parentage. I see Carolyn answered it here: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2249612/big-boy-vs-better-boy

I read about the $24. You wrote what I read, I think. I'm not sure where I read it. :)