Susan, I didn't want to be too negative, but this is an important issue because in a hot, dry year, the hybrids I grow will outproduce the OPs by as high as 10-1. It isn't like we live someplace where it is easy to grow tomatoes, and most years are hot and dry so we do have to worry about timely fruitset and heat tolerance. So, while the OPs will give a decent crop early in the season, they may or may not set fruit well in the hotter months. That's when the hybrids often pick up the slack and I feel like the great-tasting hybrids with proven disease tolerance and high yields are worth their weight in gold in July and August. Brandywine vs. Brandy Boy is a perfect example of how heat can affect an OP. Brandywine is my favorite tomato of all time and in a year when it is not too rainy as the fruit is maturing, the flavor is incredible. Nothing else tastes exactly like a good Brandywine. I first grew Brandywine in the mid-1990s and never got huge yields, except once in about 2003 or 2004 when we had so many tomatoes from six Brandywine plants that we gave them away. Everyone we gave Brandywines to said it was the best tomato they'd ever eaten, and the unspoken question in their eyes was "why don't you give us some of these every year". I felt obligated to explain that most years I only got 3 or 4 fruit per plant period for the whole year. When Burpee released Brandy Boy, I thought "Yeah, sure, like anything is ever going to match Brandywine's flavor." Still, Gone Fishin' liked them and highly recommended them, so I planted them in either BB's second or third year of existence, and I loved them. While Brandy Boy's flavor is not as exquisite as Brandywine Sudduth's, it is close enough for me. I looked at one Brandy Boy today and counted its fruit. It had 24 and still is flowering and setting fruit. In even the best of years I'd need 6 to 8 Brandywines to equal the production of one Brandy Boy. I think I planted 4 Brandy Boys this year. So, even though I love Brandywine, it just does not produce enough fruit to earn a spot in my garden, but Brandy Boy, with its similar flavor, high production and disease tolerance earns several spots in the garden. I do like True Black Brandywine and it produces well, but it has a black tomato flavor, not a true Brandywine tomato flavor. I grow at least 2 TBBs every year, and sometimes 4. I still struggle with getting the balance right between hybrid and O-P varieties. I'd rather grow more OPs for all their unique flavors and colors, but I have to grow a lot of hybrids too in order to be able to give away as many as I do and to be able to can, dehydrate and freeze a whole lot of them. I love, love, love Big Beef. I have several and they're all heavily loaded and I am thrilled about that. I also love Big Boy, which my dad always grew, even though it never seems to produce as well for me as it seemed to produce for him. Better Boy produces more heavily most years, but I don't like its flavor quite as much as Big Boy. I've never tried Best Boy because I suspect it is only an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the other Boys. I'm stubborn that way. Now I have to take back what I said about Big Boy. One year I planted 6 or 8 of them in late July for fall tomatoes. It was incredibly hot and dry. Our afternoon humidity was in the single digits many days. Our highs were over 105 and as high as 110 in August, and those Big Boys were blooming and setting fruit every day in those conditions. I believe the low humidity is what allowed high fruitset in high temps. That year, we had so many Big Boy tomatoes on those plants when the first frost hit that I pulled up the plants, brought them into the garage and stripped them of every fruit. We gave away hundreds of fruit, both red and green. It was incredible. Sill, that's the only year I've grown Big Boy that it truly wowed me with its productivity in the heat. Early Girl is a tomato-producing machine this year. The one Early Girl that I have in the galvanized 200-gallon stock tank (with three other plants) already has produced 19 ripe ones, has 4 more breaking color, and about 15 fully green ones. If she never produces another tomato this year, I'd have to be happy with how well she has done. However, she usually produces all summer long, including in July and August when a lot of others slow down, so I expect she'll keep on producing all along as long as disease or some horrid pest doesn't attack her. I grew the F-1 Top Sirloin and it was only okay as grown in my garden in whatever years I grew it. It didn't make the permanent grow list. It isn't that it was bad. It is just that it was only average, and I'm always looking for the ones that are above-average. I hope the O-P Top Sirloin is a good one for you. It sounds nice, and if Suze likes it, then it certainly is worth trying because she grows in conditions I consider tougher than ours. It is a hot dry year here at my house! lol Last May we had over 7" of rain in May alone and it was such a relief to have that rainfall. This year, in May so far, we've had less than 1.5" at our house and it is so incredibly dry that we're afraid to mow the pastures for fear the dry standing cool season grasses and forbs will ignite. It's pretty bad when it is too dry to safely mow in May. I've only set the place on fire once by having the lawn mower hit a rock, causing a spark that set the grass on fire, but it is an experience I do not care to repeat. You should get fruit from virtually anything you planted this year as long as the plants stay healthy. The temperatures are in the right range for fruit set and, for once, are staying there in that range for a decent amount of time. I did look at my dwarfs this afternoon, and all of them are in bloom or have blooms about to open, but none have visible fruitset yet. The plants thenselves are healthy and happy with no pests and no diseases so far. Dawn

Notvery, I'm not good with the chemistry part but I an tolerably acceptable on the physical part. I was under the impression that allowing this plant to reach its potential size was not an option and that while you gave it more room by enlarging its pot, it was showing signs of stress at its current size, thus the inevitable need to prune. We experience high temps and high humidity for a long time. 95 degrees and 90% humidity can go on for weeks and weeks with night time temps above 80 and even higher humidity. It can get worse than that. Pruning for air flow with out reducing your little solar panels too much is the game. So, I prune it and open a wound that could be a site for problems or don't prune it and have the interior of the "bush" surely have lethal and contagious problems. The point of all that is that while at first it may be difficult for you to prune your prince, he'll survive all but the most careless of hair cuts :-) Respiration, root to plant balence, vegitative to reproductive states, disease control, take your pick. If it were me, in my growing area and my plant was already approaching maximum allowable size and showing signs of root stress, pretty much any stem without blooms that was not strategically important for sunscald protection would go now. Some have said no more than three of these per day ... OK. Some like single stem, others more, I saw a guy with a beautiful but huge set up that intentionaly trains for 12! Its up to you and your space. Then I would switch to a little Missouri method. Then I'd wait and see how it goes. Probably would not prune anymore suckers because I would be topping the plant eventually and will want their fruit. But its not my plant. Best of luck and have fun.

I don't think a Florida Weave will work on container plants, do you? I've looked at all the photos in the link that you provided and all those plants appear to be grown in the ground. I've learned my lesson regarding a single stake, not sure what I was thinking, actually; I believe that I didn't think my plants would end up making it as far as they have. I usually don't have very good luck with tomatoes grown in containers. The fact that they appear to be growing so well and look healthy is a total surprise to me, especially due to one of the containers have two (Big Beef) plants in it. If there is a way to use a Florida weave for a container plant, will you let me know, I would really appreciate it. These containers are getting very heavy and I'd hate to loose the plants now. Thanks for your reply. Linda

Can I ask why so many questions about, the fixation on, weird crossings? I assume you know that it is more complex than just knocking the blooms from 2 different plants together? It doesn't happen over night, can often take years before anything is visible to the eye, that most of the time any change is not visible to the naked eye? That it can often involve multiple varieties to achieve any documented change in even one of them? That it is not something that most tomato growers intentionally do or are interested in. Most are interested in growing quality tomatoes to eat, not in weird crosses, much less making intentional crosses. Check out the Hybridizing forum here. That is where most of the crossing discussions are found. http://www.gardenweb.com/gardenweb/query/tomatoes/topic=hybrid Dave