I grew two last yr. They were very tasty, a bit mild, lrg and very few.

Replaced with Aunt Gerties Gold for this yr.

My wife prefers yellows when eating toms regularly so I'll always have to have several yellow varieties.

We like Lemon Boy very much for lots of reasons but its a brighter taste than YB.

We like Carolina Gold but only one yrs. experience with them. Growing again this yr. More mellow than LB.

We did not like Husky Gold. Thick skin, No Taste!

There will always be a Yellow Pear but some folks don't care for them.

Excellent large tomato but very late to ripen, even for here.

It is very delicious, sweet and buttery. But the first year I grew it I only got one fruit, last year I actually got more, but still, it's not a big cropper so grow it as an "accent" tomato, not a main crop. And it doesn't do well with nematodes at all. And depending on where you are in the Bay area, you might not get enough heat to fully bring out its flavors.

Carla in Sac

Thanks all

So...what are nematodes??

I live in the EastBay(Martinez) where it get super hot.
The Bay area's crazy as where I live, it may be 104F but where I work, in Oakland, 27 miles away, it may be 77F

Here is UC Davis on nematodes. They are a major problem for California crops, and I've had them everywhere I've lived in California, to varying degrees. Most tomatoes just suffer through them, some die early, some just shrug it off. My symptoms are yellowing leaves and failure to grow well, after the plants hit about 2-3 feet tall.

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7489.html

Carla in Sac

Carla in Sac

Dang, sounds like nasty little critters
Since I am growing them in my homemade "earthbox" type self watering planters with potting mix, I dont think this will be a problem for me...or at least hope not

Hey! I think a couple of you have gotten hold of some seeds claimed to be Yellow Brandywine that simply were not.

The taste of Yellow Brandywine is so intense that there are many who find it overpowering. It is very much on the acidic side rather than the sweet side and I cannot imagine, even with the hugh differences in individual taste buds, descriptions as above. And I can't imagine a soil or weather condition that would explain it, unless there is evidence that many other vegetable varieties in the same garden environment do very strange and unexpected things.

Yellow Brandywine is one of my personal favorites. However, my wife just won't mess with them. If forced to take a bite
she puckers up as though she has a lemon in her mouth and
makes an ugly face!

One problem with Yellow Brandywine is the tendency to set
catfaced or irregular shaped fruit--and by the way, not too
much of a yield of it. There is one strain developed, I believe, in Ohio called the Platfoot Strain which claims to
help with these problems. I have comparison grown it against a selected seed of my own and see no improvement.
But I have seen an earlier ripening to gold color and a softer taste in the Platfoot Strain.

Larry, I agree with you to a point. I don't see Yellow Brandywine as being sweet either, but I wouldn't say it has an aggressive taste ( my word for acidic b/c all varieties have about the same actual pH) either in terms of "puckering up". ( smile)

I think it has an excellent complex/rich taste.

I prefer Aunt Gerties Gold, and there are some others in that same color class that I like as well such as Dr. Wyche's, for example.

About the PLatfoot strain. I received seeds for YB from Gary PLatfoot and I'm the one who called that one a strain and I did so b'c it differs mildly, but to me significantly, from original YB in terms of higher yield and much less fruit blemishes as grown by me several times over a several year period of time.

Besides, Gary lived not far from where Barbara Lund found YB as given to her by Charlie Knoy and it was Barabara who first listed it in the SSE Yearbook many years ago. My feeling is that any YB from that area has a chance of being closer to the original.

So it wasn't developed in Ohio by Gary Platfoot, it was just what he was growing and I called it the PLatfoot strain for the reasons I gave above.

As for yields of anything, they can vary considerably from year to year even for the same variety. And even when I was growing the non-Platfoot strain I got good yields.

I think everyone who does grow it agrees that it's very late maturing.

Carolyn

Agree with Carolyn about the taste varying from year to year even in the same garden. The first year I grew Yellow Brandywine it had an incredible intense fresh fruity flavor, almost akin to a hint of ripe cantelope. In later years, grown from seeds from the same packet, they never quite had the complex mix of flavors again. Less heat, too much rain, who knows why? Still good, but not the same. I don't consider it sweet or too acidic. Just right.

Well, now I am really excited to see for myself.
Hmmm, only about 80 days now :)

I grew it 2 years ago (Platfoot strain). It tasted good, kind of mild I would say. Production was ok, but very late (the last 10 fruit ripened on my kitchen table after frost). It was slightly fluted but no cracking or other irregularities, beautiful fruit. Fairly large size.
JMO,
Tom

I tried it twice. I thought they were some of the best tomato's I have tried. Unfortunatly, the first year I only got 1 tomato off of 1 plant. The second year I got 2 tomatos off of one plant. I havn't grown any for quite a while. I might be tempted to try again, but I don't know. There are too many others I havn't tried yet.

This message to the attention of Carolyn and a big Hello
with it:

Carolyn,

Two years ago I sent you seeds from my selection of Yellow Brandywine, which I called "Sonshine Sweet Set" and also a packet of seeds from (as I recall) TGS for the Platfoot strain of Yellow Brandywine.

Now, I did grow 8 plants side by side of each variety; I believe that was in 2003 0r 2002. My "selection" made more fruit of top quality, set more fruit so I was able to hand
prune away irregulars and still have a nece fruit set, was
more intensely flavorful than the Platfoots, held better
longer on the plants before softening, ripened later from
yellow to the gold color, at which point the Platfoots had lost a lot of the character in their taste and were much softer than my seeds at the same turn to gold point.

Now the magic question: Did you or someone else grow them out and if so how did they COMPARE. Comparison is the key
word!!!

Larry

Now the magic question: Did you or someone else grow them out and if so how did they COMPARE. Comparison is the key
word!!!

****

Now Larry, don't get annoyed with me but I have absolutely no memory at all of receiving those seeds.

So I either didn't get them or they're in a box out there in the back room.

Did I send you a thank you for them? I almost always do that and if you didn't get one I wonder if I got the seeds.

Was it associated with a seed offer of mine here at GW by some chance?

Carolyn

If you've got room for one more plant do yourself a favor and grow Aunt Gertie's Gold. For me it replaced YB which is at least a 9. It has superb taste, perfectly balanced, earlier and more productive. If I could only grow two tomatoes AGG would be one of them.

From the original post: "Just wondering what opinions or knowledge people have on the Yellow Brandywines ..."

Grew it once in 2006. Very late. Big bull plant. Four tomatoes about 115 - 120 days from transplant. Great texture. Good flavor, but flavor didn't trump pitiful production. Won't grow it again.

A bit more opinion here ... there is absolutely no proof and hardly a scintilla of evidence that Yellow Brandywine is a Brandywine at all.

First of all, Barbara Lund (the first to list Yellow Brandywine in the SSE Yearbook) is from Ohio. I don't know where in Ohio. Nor do I know where in Ohio Mr. Platfoot is from. Not that it makes any difference ... other than I keep getting the impression that locating this tomato in Ohio somehow would make it more of a "Brandywine" than if the tomato came out of Indiana.

But according to the story given at Victory Seed's "History of Brandywine" page Barbara Lund is documented as saying she got "Yellow Brandywine" from Charlie Knoy, a resident of Indiana ... a Hoosier, not a Buckeye gardener. Now, Knoy is a very rare surname in Indiana, with the few Knoys mostly living around Linton, a small town way over on the western side of Indiana a bit south of Terre Haute. Linton is about 150 miles from the Ohio border as the crow flies ... not exactly "in the same neighborhood" ... again, not that it makes any difference really.

A couple of years ago, I spent some time contacting any Knoy I could locate in Indiana, and found one relative of Charles Knoy, in Linton, who remembers him growing tomatoes ... "mostly the kind you buy at the hardware store" was how she put it.

I have yet to see in print that Barbara Lund ever confirmed Charles Knoy calling this tomato by the name "Yellow Brandywine." And I'd truly love to see Mrs. Lund's confirmation that Mr. Knoy called it Yellow Brandywine when he sent her seeds for what is now grown as Yellow Brandywine. That would at least clean up that loose end.

I have yet to see in print that Barbara Lund ever confirmed Charles Knoy calling this tomato by the name "Yellow Brandywine." And I'd truly love to see Mrs. Lund's confirmation that Mr. Knoy called it Yellow Brandywine when he sent her seeds for what is now grown as Yellow Brandywine. That would at least clean up that loose end.

*****

Bill, when I mentioned their names above I didn't say that Charlie Knoy was from Indiana, but that's quite true as I also wrote in my book at the back.

And I have no idea if it was Knoy or Lund who named it Yellow Brandywine, and I don't think anyone will ever know.

I too have tried to track down any Lunds in OH, but it's a fruitless search. There are two Lunds as listed SSE members in the 08 Yearbook but one is from CA and the other from NC.

To my mind the only Bradnywine we know something about, re background, is Red Brandywine and the others are pure conjecture as I see it. I mean Brandywine and Yellow Brandywine, not the others that were a result of deliberate breeding or X pollinations.

Carolyn
s er

Carolyn,

When I sent you the Yellow Brandywine seed it followed a number of postings here on the web regarding that tomato in general. Seems like 2 or 3 years ago to me.

It might have been after you sent me some Neve's Azorean seed, that variety now being one of my favorites which I have grown every year now. By the way, the reported cross between Neve's and Brandywine fascinates me and I look forward to reports about the performance this year.

Earl, re your suggestion regarding Aunt Gerties Gold. I have grown that for the past two years and will do so again this year. I don't recall my source of seed but I am beginning to suspect it is crossed as so far it fails to impress. Poor yield and mostly irregular fruit, but, I agree the taste is very excellent. If it doesn't do well this year I think I'll look for replacement seed and start over. Not the first time I've had bad seed.

Larry

I will chime in here although I'm late to the party. YB for me was similar to others. A great taste but only one nice large fruit. Will not be back this year. AGG was a nice plant that never produced one fruit. So didn't even get to taste one. Had a few small ones at frost but none that were big enough to turn. I may try both again in the future. But have so many to try that I didn't bring them back this year. If you want orange KB is hard to beat in my garden. I'm trying several new yellows this year. I do have some Yellow bicolors I really like. Tom's Yellow Wonder didn't produce real well but had great taste and is getting another chance this year. They best way I've found is too grow several in your garden and judge for yourself. JD

Larry, I don't throw out seed sent to me so somewhere in that back room in a box somewhere I'll probably find those seeds you sent me whenever I get a chance to look for them. LOL

As for Aunt Gerties Gold, I think it's a terrific variety and I have a lot of 2003 seed that I have to drop from my SSE listings for next year. So if you want some seed, and it's still germinating OK and you can double sow as well if you wish, just e-mail me or even try the GW message system b'c it seems to be working now, and give me your address.

Not a general offer folks. Sorry.

Carolyn

I grew a couple of Nebraska Wedding last year. An orange OP tomato. Lots of lovely globular healthy fruit with a nice flavor. They almost looked like a hybrid they were so 'perfect' looking. But the taste was far and above a hybrid of course. The plant was a nice bushy 3 feet tall and well behaved. (Also from Seed Savers Exchange, like Carolyn's AGG.)

This season is my first experience with Yellow Brandywine. My plants grew about 7 foot and each plant produced around 10 very large orange fruits. I found the flavor to be very tasty and perfectly sweet.

I grew Yellow Brandywine once a few years ago. I got exactly one tomato off the plant. It was a wonderful tomato, rich and fruity, but I need more production than that.

"I got exactly one tomato off the (Yellow Brandywine) ... I need more production than that."

Well ... cross it with Yellow Pear! :::smile:::