Accidental cross with a stabilized Brandy Boy

[Shule]

A while back, I received seeds from John11840 of Gardenweb for his stabilized Brandy Boy tomato. He gave me a couple bags (F10 and F12 seeds). The F10 seeds (which I grew in 2019) were PL as expected, but the F12 seeds (which I grew the year before, in 2018) were RL. So, when I realized that Brandy Boy is supposed to be PL, I knew it was a cross. To me, it's a fascinating cross, too!

This post is about the cross and its descendants (not about the true breeding variety, which got a late start, anyway).

Okay, so the F1 (in 2018) was early! It wasn't just early for a big tomato, it was early compared to tomatoes generally. Only a few things were earlier. It was also prolific, and fruited all season. The initial fruits were smaller than the rest. It still had good-sized fruits (not giant, but big enough to call big). It had good flavor. The stems were so firmly attached to the fruits that I'm sure it could be trellised without any worry whatsoever of fruits falling off. I preferred to harvest it with scissors.

I grew several F2s in 2019. They got kind of a late start; so, I'm not sure how early they were, but here's what I got:

* Every plant produced large fruit. Some were pink and at least one was dark pink (the F1 was just pink; so, I'm guessing dark pink is recessive). Most were regular leaf, but I made sure to keep two potato leaf plants. The two potato leaf plants turned out to be by far the most desirable ones (IMO). The stems were not as firmly attached to the fruits as the F1 (I could harvest most of them without scissors).
* The RL plants all tasted similar to each other, with varying production, maturity, plant size, and hang-time. I guess the flavor was kind of like Early Girl F1. I know I said in another post (on Tomatoville) that they pretty much all seemed to taste different (but that was a premature analysis). There was one RL plant that I preferred to the others, however, as it produced more and earlier fruit. Maybe it tasted a bit different.

Okay, here's what the two PL plants were like:

1. This was one of my favorite tomatoes I've ever grown, if not my favorite. The flavor was unique and very tart, in a really good, fine-flavored (but not mild) way. That's what really stuck out. However, it was one of the two earliest F2s, if not the earliest. It produced all season long, steadily (not as heavily as the F1, but definitely good production, and with a longer season, or an earlier start, it probably would have been heavier). I really liked these in frittatas, but they were great fresh. It didn't taste like Brandy Boy at all, nor like Early Girl. The first fruit was heavily catfaced; I don't think the others had major issues there. The fruits were pink.
2. This one tasted almost exactly like Brandy Boy F1. It was nearly a multi-flora, but not quite. Production was good. It was later than plant #1, but it still had a very usable maturity for my climate. It got a fruit from a megabloom with an enormous blossom scar. The fruits were dark pink (like Pruden's Purple).

I plan to grow seeds from fruits of both of the PL plants next year. I've given some seeds to others, too; so, hopefully they'll have feedback when they grow them.

So, here's what we know about the parent of the original cross:
It's regular leaf. It's probably large. It's probably dark pink. The stems probably aren't super firmly attached to the plant (the Brandy Boy F10 did have the super firmly attached stems). John11840 grew it one year. I wonder if it was Cherokee Purple, Indian Stripe, or some such.

I grew all the plants I mentioned with black plastic and drought conditions.

[TheDante]

I am humbled… there is so much to learn … just getting dizzy from this.

[Ginger2778]

Shule, are going to do the F2 this year? You'll likely get 1/4 Pl, are you going for a certain leaf type?
I love this. Our KARMA Peach had a bee cross, I'm growing the F1 now. I think it crossed with a beautiful large pink heart. I'm going to select about 20 PL in the F2, trying for a new bicolor and a new pink heart.

[Shule]

[mention]Ginger2778[/mention]

I'm just planning to grow F3s this year, but I might do more F2s, and try some PL plants that show up from them (possibly another year for the F2s, though). The most notable F2s last year were both PL. So, for the F3s I plan to grow (which came from those two PL plants), they should all be PL this year unless they crossed again.

I'm really excited for ones from the tart, regular pink one. I plan to grow a few of those. I might just grow one or two of the dark pink near-multiflora one. But, if anyone in the USA wants to help out, or just wants to grow either (or even the F2s), feel free to let me know!

I would grow a lot more F3s and F2s, but I have so many other kinds of tomatoes I have seeds to try. So, for now, it's just a few plants from my crosses a year. When I get my own garden and land, then I can hopefully do a lot more! The garden isn't mine, and the owner gets nervous if I plant too many tomatoes compared to other things. I can get away with 60 to 100 tomato plants, usually, but, honestly, I'd love to grow out everything I have in a single year (more than once), and whole fields of F2s and F3s! Granted, I probably wouldn't cage any of them, and I might just plant the F2s/F3s as pre-started seeds instead of transplants (to save time and money, and to help select for early, vigorous plants).

Your bee cross sounds exciting. Maybe you'll get a bicolor heart! I don't know if I've ever seen one.

[Shule]

So, today, I counted the flowers on some of the PL descendants of the F2s above. The one plant from last year's near-multiflora has 36 buds/blossoms on its first truss. That's quite a few, but I think it had more last year.

HOWEVER,

To my surprise, one of my plants from last year's tart Brandy Boy cross (which wasn't a near-multiflora last year) has ~116 on its first truss, which makes it a full multiflora/centiflor beefsteak! It was grown from fruit #3 of last year's plant. It has two fruits that have set on the truss, so far, including a megabloom, and one blossom to have dropped. The other tart Brandy Boy cross plants have plenty of flowers, but this one seems to have the most, so far.

Here's a picture which shows the most visible flowers on that truss (many of them are pretty tiny, and haven't come to size, and leaves and camera quality are blocking others; you can probably only see 30-something of the ~116):

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The truss has truss has two main branches, which in turn have branches of trusses.

Here's the beginning of the truss structure (the branch on the right is very thick and quickly splits into more branches):

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Here's the other plant (36 buds/blossoms) from last year's near-multiflora, which has also set fruit:

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[MissS]

How cool is that. So you have a PL Brandy Boy cross that is multi-flora. Any guess from where the multi-flora gene came from?

[Shule]

[mention]MissS[/mention]
All I know about the other parent is that it seems to have had these traits:
* Regular leaf
* Large-fruited
* Dark pink fruit, which seems recessive to the lighter pink
* John11840 of Gardenweb grew it, probably on his F11 generation of his stabilized Brandy Boy.
* I'm guessing the plant size was not large. My plants aren't big, anyway, nor were the F2s (although the RL siblings and the F1 perhaps had larger plants, I think).
* It may be early. The F1 was incredibly early.
* Probably has an oblate beefsteak shape.

I've questioned John1180 about what he grew, but he didn't say. I believe he grows Rutgers, but, it's red.

I don't know where the multiflora trait came from. Maybe it's a mutation. Maybe it's environmental. Maybe each parent had only part of the genes necessary.

[Shule]

Here's a fruit I harvested from among my plants, today. I think it's the first one (so, they're not early, this year). The taste is like a cross between the most common taste of the RLs last year and Chapman or Pink Cheeks. It's not super tart. It would be a good tuna tomato. But look how meaty it is! The fruit is very light in weight, for the size. It wasn't dry, however. The seeds are large. This is from the plant just east of Cold Black Brandy.

These pictures are all of the same one fruit:

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[Shule]

Here are some fruits from this year's plant grown from a seed of a fruit of last year's near-multiflora plant. The coloring resembles Pierce's Pride, which I'm growing this year. I'm not sure where the brown came from! It was dark pink last year. These pictures are of four separate fruits (some are different angles of the same fruit):

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[Shule]

There are ripe fruits on other plants from this project, but I'm a bit overwhelmed. So, hopefully I'll harvest, taste, and seed them all soon!

[Whwoz]

Nice looking fruit, if taste matches looks, you're on a winner

[Shule]

[mention]Whwoz[/mention], I just tasted one—not the largest one and not the smallest. I must say I was intrigued by the taste and its qualities:

It's a good taste. It's a familiar taste, somehow, but usually when a tomato starts to tastes like that, the taste changes and it has aftertastes and such. But this taste (as well as the potency level) is the same from beginning to end, and that doesn't seem like a bad thing. No aftertaste/aftersmell. I don't want to say it's a simple taste, but it is straightforward (it is what it is). It's not mild, but it's not potent. It has enough tang to be good on burritos and stuff, but it's not overpoweringly tangy. It's not thick enough of a taste that I would call it rich, but it approaches richness. It's kind of hard to describe, but it doesn't taste like its relatives/ancestors that are in the project. Despite being brown on top, there's no smokiness or earthiness in flavor.

I had to sample quite a bit of the tomato before I was finished assessing it. It's a tomato where I feel like eating more after eating some. Taiga and Pruden's Purple are like that, too. That's not particularly a flavor thing, but it's a great thing, IMO. I mean, I think my stomach and throat like it more than most tomatoes.

On going back for another sampling, I detecting more kinds of taste/smell than I initially had. Maybe that's because I got closer to the center of the fruit.

The texture is excellent! If you like the texture of Taiga, you'll probably enjoy this, too (but the texture is a little different).

The sliced tomato was unusually difficult to photograph compared to every other large tomato I've photographed. It caught the glare from the lightbulbs very easily, and it took me a good while to get pictures without loads of glare. Initially, I had to find a warmer light to do it (although there was still a lot of glare, just not nearly as much), but afterward somehow came upon an angle where I could take a semi-decent one in the usual cooler light above our stove. Here they are.

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I'm going to codename this kind of tomato Glaze_1, for now (due to its sheen). The _1 is to let us know it's a working title, and which generation from the naming it is (with 1 being the generation of the naming). It could be changed with the next growout (in which case it would start back at 1). I just made that convention up (no one else is doing it, as far as I know). If I give seeds to anyone, they should just keep using the number that's on it with their future growouts, so I can keep track of which line it is (leave the incrementing to me).

[Whwoz]

[mention]Shule[/mention] intriguing indeed. Best wishes developing this tomato, will follow with interest

[Shule]

[mention]Whwoz[/mention]

Thanks!

I edited in some more content at the end of my previous post. The codename is to help me label and talk about it more easily, so I don't have to give lengthy descriptions to describe which plant I'm talking about. The other plants in this project are as yet unnamed.

[Shule]

I'm eating the largest Glaze_1 tomato, now. It has earthiness, and more sweetness than the first fruit I tried. It has a pleasant quality that the other one didn't, too. The taste is fairly different. Interesting. The hole in it is from me cutting the stem out. The earthiness gets stronger after a while, and dominates.

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[Whwoz]

Very meaty, if photos taken with flash on [mention]Shule[/mention], you may want to try taking with flash turned off. Had one or two Tomatos that took better photos that way season just gone here.

[Shule]

Here's the next Glaze_1 tomato. It tasted like the largest one. I think the larger one and this one are riper than the first one. I prefer the first one.

The earthy flavor I described above is one that is found in red tomatoes (such as Matina on some years) more than black tomatoes, though. Maybe earthy isn't the right word.

This fruit was easier to photograph without a glare, but I put one in for continuity's sake!

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[Shule]

[mention]Whwoz[/mention]
No flash here. I'm using my Kindle Fire's camera.

[Shule]

Here's my fruit from the plant from a seed of the first fruit of last year's tart Brandy Boy cross F2. I'm going to codename this one Applesauce_1, using the same numbering convention as for Glaze_1.

If ever a tomato were meant for a raw sauce similar to finished applesauce it was this one. It's sweet, and tart, and pleasantly mushy. Kind of weird, but cool. I've never had a tomato quite like it. It tastes nothing like its parent fruit. All three pictures are of the same one fruit.

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[Shule]

Here are two fruits from the plant just east of Silvery Fir Tree. This is from the full multiflora plant. I'm codenaming this one Picnic_1.

Anyway, the ripest ones (I tasted another that isn't pictured) are very juicy. They're sweet, and have a few interesting flavors.

The less ripe one has an astounding taste! It's kind of fruity; it has depth; it has good sandwich qualities in both texture and taste; one of the tastes reminds me of smoked lunchmeat, but it has some similar qualities to Chapman, too. It has semi-cherry flavor, too. Both fruits are very meaty. Anyway, they have a grow-again flavor for me.

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