Big boy and Big Mama?

kidding aside, commercial hybrids are a lot more complex than simply crossing two plants. for example, they could of crossed one plant with another to produce "Big Red 1", then use the 'offspring' from "Big Red 1" to cross with yet another variety called "Big Red 2" to produce "Big Girl" .. but it can can go on and on, crossing many plants to take certain traits from them.. so it's impossible to say. hope that make any sense..

Yeah my guess would be Big Boy with Early Girl. But first they would have to do the crossings to get Big Boy and then same for Early Girl and there are at least 3 strains of Early Girl.

But I will note that it is not a Burpee exclusive either although they like to claim that it is.

Dave

> Big Girl is the best tomato Burpee ever produced IMO

they have a few.. brandy boy is great.
what irritates me about them is all the local chains have walls and walls of burpee seeds and every year it's the same crap over and over... big beefs, steak, etc.. the tomatoe varieties i want have to be ordered online and their online prices have gotten ridiculous. i refuse to pay $5-8 for 25 seeds and $5 shipping..

Lately i just buy from Ferry Morse now, since they carry a lot of great seeds that burpee refuse to sell locally.

I doubt it very much that they would go through multiple crossing to create a hybrid. The simplest and logical way would be just to cross two OP.

Anyway, they won't tell us the name of the parents otherwise others can copy it and give it a different name.

sey

I'm guessing what they really do instead of multiple first-generation crosses is stabilize the crossed parent lines before they cross them again, and not release the parent lines (so even if people know what they are, they won't have access to them, such that the final F1 hybrid will be proprietary). That would make sense, anyway.

I think usually only one of the parents would need to be a unique stabilized cross, if so, though, because you only really have to do that with one line to ensure people can't steal your hybrid. And, you can use that parent line for any number of crosses. Not that I'm particularly fond of trade secrets, but they restrict personal freedom a lot less than intellectual property laws (which aren't required here).

@stevie, keep an eye out for free shipping. They were doing it site wide through last week:( For now you can Try using this promo code missfs. I had luck using it the other day.

BIg Girl was, by a wide margin, my favorite tomato ever. I sure wish that Burpee would bring it back.