Ive now received three notices about this thread andnormally Inolongerrespond, but I thought Iwouldthis time. My answer to someof you who have asked questions here and now were answered here in March of 2009 but I suppose I can try to go through it again, for those of you who didn't read the earlier posts in this thread and repeated questions. Big Boy F1 was bred by OvedShirfriss when he was at Burpee, one parent was Teddy Jones, an heirloom from the midwest that Burpee scouts if you will, discovered and paid the farmer $24 for exclusive rights for it and that was sometime back in the early 40's since I think Big Boy F1 was introduced in about 1946 without checking that out. italloedthatfarmertobuild a smallgreenhousesohe washappy. And just think how much money Burpee has made on the $24, At the timeJohn Peto was also at burpee and he left, taking seeds with him for Teddy Jones and formed PEtoseed in CA and bred Better Boy F1, a cross between TJ and I don't know the other parent although I do know both Parents of Big Boy F1 b'c Dr. Schifriss told me what they were and said he trusted me to never say what the other parent was and I never have. I knew him quite well and at one time was trying to dehybridize Big Boy to see if I could get out TJ, just to see what it was like. I didn't have to do that, I had abandoned that project b'c I then got an e-mail from someone who worked at Burpee telling me what Teddy Jones was like. I also got to know Dr.Shifriss even better when he went to Rutgers and was breeding some excellent squash varieties and spent one summer with Glenn Drowns at Sandhill preservation in IA advising Glenn, a close friend of mine still now, Oved was lonely out there and used to call me a lot, he still spoke with a heavy German accent and at times it was hard to understand him on squash genetics.At the time Glenn was the curator for Cucurbits for SSE, but he left SSE as I did last year as a listed member. I don't know why the interest here so much on Big Boy and Better Boy, both are still very popular varieties but I liked even better some of the same era F1's such as Ramapo F1 and the two Harris bred ones Supersonic F1 and Jet Star F1. Yes PEtoseed bred Brandy Boy for Burpee as they did many other varieties, They were told by Burpee what Burpee wanted , bred them and then Burpee gave them names. And that b'c Burpee went into bankrutpcy, as I'm sure some of you know, they did some wrong things, they had no breeders left so custom contracted out varieties to PEtoseed for this and that/ Yes, those of you in the South, whether Fl or AL or whatever are going to have more leaf mold and not just with the ones being discussed here and that's b'c of thehigh humidity, and yes, yields can be lower for the simple reason that Humidity can also lead to clumped pollen which is not all that effective, and if just high continued temps, denaturation of pollen even in the absence of high humidity. I was referred here by someone who grew mainly heirloom varieties and Craig LeHoullier was not. Not true at all. For many years I worked closely with the Cornell Coop Extensionion and did did grow both hybrids and OP's b/c they wanted me to do a largeproject on foliage diseases, etc. The operative word for foliage diseases world wide is tolerance, not resistance and the tomato industry adopted the word tolerance when several large scale growers of hybrids said that theirplants came down with diseases, both soil borne and foliage that they were not supposed to do and law suits followed. With repect to Brandy Boy F1 it is presumed that one parent is Brandywine, no one knows which strain/Version and most have assumed the other parent was either Big Boy or Better Boy. Brandywine is pink, the other two are red, red is dominant to pink, so selections could have been made and BB is PL and the only way that could happen is if both parents were also PL since PL is recessive to RL. And both boys are RL, so another issue to think about. And twofolks havec,imed that hey have fronplants that had red fruitsfrom F2 seeds saved from BranyBoy F1 Starting maybe three years ago or so burpee now has hired some breeders and are back breeding some of their own varieties in PA. I was shocked, I tell you, when I received an invitation to the opening of their new facilities. Personally I have never bought seeds from Burpee after I bought plants for a variety I wanted as well as seeds for the same variety for them, they changed the NAME of that variety several times, I grew theplants, the seeds and compared with my own seeds and they were no different. I just rememnered that it was the first time that a well known heirloom OP had been converted to an F1, and I found their F1 plants and seeds to be no different from my own OP seeds for the same variety. They also named several of their varieties about the same as Brad Gates ones which ired a LOT of folks and there was a write in to Burpee complaining about that. OK, I've typed enough and if there are questions I haven't answered and I if I get another notice perhaps I can answer those questions,maybe not, it all depends on the questions. Seysonn has suggested that if I don't want the notices I can opt out but quite frankly I'm not going to do that since if wrong stuff is posted perhaps I can help.but I am NOTgoing to go back to Houzz on a regular basis since I'm a Global Moderator at two different message sites, am still involved in seed offers , Ihave seedproducersnowsinebeinginthiswalkerI cannolongergrowmyowntomatoes asIused to formany decades and have also had several medical issues and am facing two more right now I just remembered that I think it was Hudson who said he doesn't care how many varieties one has grown, my figure on that is 4,000 plus, and how many years one has grown tomatoes, I started helping out on our farm whenI was about 5 and I'm 76 now and said he doesn't care about any of that unless someone posts pictures. I don't for several reasons and if that makes me not to be believed, know well that I don't Tweet, no pinterest, no instagram,no facebook , none of that, and yet I exist and particpitate at 5 different message sites and all is well. <G> All for now, Carolyn

Anney, there is no F1 Manalucie that I know of. Why Reimer's continues to confuse issues is beyond me. Well, not really b'c I get it, I really do. I've linked to an article written by Dr. Jay Scott about the accomplishments of the U of FL Tomato Breeding station. Manalucie was bred there and released in 1953 and it was an important step forward at the timne b'c it had "resistance" against leaf mold and "field" resistance against Early Blight ( A. solani) One of the earliest places to offer seed was Gleckler's in 1958 and I'm pretty sure I talked about them starting back up again this year here at GW but if I didn't I can and will. Not that they are offering Manalucie now, just that historically they were probably the first place to offer it commercially. I don't think others have noted that there's any particular tolerance to Early Blight which leaves us with all the claims made at various other web sites such as resistant to BER ( no variety is), stands high heat better ( lots of foliage), but heat tolerance these days is more often related to pollen that doesn't destruct as readily as others in high sustained heat. The article was written in 1998 so what's said about Manalucie by Jay Scott I believe is very true. And I don't see any mention about Fusarium either. Perhaps Manalucie-F refers to the fact it was bred in Florida. It's one of the many older commercial varieties and we grew it on the farm where I was raised, in NYS, along with Valiant and New Yorker and Rutgers and the like. Carolyn Here is a link that might be useful: U of FL cultivars; Manalucie

1) Are there any Sungold or Sunsugar F8s or F9s out there? Sungold Select and Sungold Select II. 2) When do OP seed grown plants become *heirloom*...is there a number of years, or do they ever? Some say whenever an open pollinated (OP) tomato is passed from one generation to another within the same family, it becomes a "family heirloom" although you'll find that most "family heirlooms" came recently from overseas with minimal geneological data, or have a claim appended to them of "grown in her family for over 80 years," "reportedly grown by (insert a native American tribe)," or "grown in the area for as long as anyone alive can remember." Others say it takes 50 years for an OP to become an "heirloom" except: Some people feel a commercial OP tomato bred by professional or university breeders must have been stabilized and in common circulation before 1941 because the folks who determined the "commercial heirloom" category feel that was about the time that commercial hybrid tomatoes became available to home gardeners (even though the really famous and persistent two home garden hybrids weren't on the market until 1946 and 1948) :::smile::: OR If the tomato were an intentional cross with both parents known, and at least one being some sort of "heirloom" to begin with (sometimes this qualification is overlooked), and the gardener takes the time to stabilize the intentional cross, then some folks consider the stabilized cross to be a "created heirloom" (even though this procedure is exactly the same procedure as for hundreds of commercially produced OP tomato varieties which don't qualify as "commercial heirlooms" because they missed the 1941 cut-off date) :::shrug::: OR If the tomato was an accidental cross with one parent unknown and the other parent hopefully qualifying as one or another kind of "heirloom," and the gardener spent the time to stabilize the accidental cross, some folks consider the stabilized cross to be a "mystery heirloom" unless some sluethy tomato enthusiast can prove, or at least insinuate successfully, that the person claiming "bee pollination" in fact manufactured the cross or completely fabricated the story :::giggle::: (Hey, a guy has to have fun somehow in the afternoon!) 3)If you are growing heirloom or OP tomatoes, what are the chances of two different types being cross-pollinated? If the chances are high, how far apart should different varieties be grown to help insure no cross-pollination? Chances are very low unless you have native pollinators very active in your area. For example, in my area, I have only infrequently seen bumble bees visit tomato blossoms. As to how far apart one must separate tomato plants to ensure no cross pollination ... how far can an insect pollinator fly with pollen attached to its body parts and then land on another blossom? And why do some folks say 6 feet for tomatoes but 100 or 200 feet for peppers? This remains a mystery to me. 4) And lastly, how the heck do the hybridizers do it? For instance those who are producing the Sungold tomato seeds. I could certainly understand high prices on F1 hybrids if they actually manually hand pollinate flowers. And even then...how do you do that? Those little flowers are so tiny, and how do you keep them from fertilizing themselves. Are there any websites that show photos of this process? Click Here for hybrid seed production in tomatoes pdf. Click Here for the same thing as a slide show. Click Here for an easy to follow along demonstration and a Web site that has a wealth of tomato breeding info and links. Click Here for the North Carolina State University Cultivar Lists where some parents of older hybrids are named (like Avalanche = Mozark x Glamour, or MoCross Surprise (Missouri Surprise) = Mozark x Sioux) but where they won't name the parents of many proprietary hybrids or hybrids that are still under production. Bill

Don't worry about it, Sue. I got plenty of Goose Creek seeds and no plan to grow them again soon. Ok...great. I can strike that off my list of worries. I also have a blue million other seeds that you may be interested in for 2009. Hmmmm...just so you know, I know you are an enabler, enabling me! Though I don't 'need' any new (to me) varieties for probably umpteen years, I sure cannot pass up a chance to at least find out what you might have that I don't....I admit I am addicted and weak,. By next season I hope to have some great tomato cages that I can just plop a variety here and there...out by the road, up the road, down the road, out on the corner, as I have lots of road frontage here. You're lucky to have any kind of tomato garden in Indiana this year considering our wacky, wet, wild and fungal spring followed by a sweaty summer and this just past awful August.. Considering the past 2 seasons have been a bust for me (problems and the plants got absolutely no attention after being planted out), this has been a late, but great season for me. I was just thinking I will welcome the tomato season nearing the end as I have been trying to keep up with pretty well all that ripens as I hate seeing them rot, and everyone close here grows there own and have too many also. I've lost a lot to rot, insects, sunscald, and critters, but there are still more than enough for my fresh eating and canning needs. I guess I will just continue canning until I run out of jars, which will never happen. Sue