Better boy

[TomatoDon]

Better Boy is a long time All-Star in the tomato world. An authentic tried-and-true classic.
Also try "Big Beef" which is often considered an improved version of Better Boy. Many people who have traditionally planted Better Boy are now planting Big Beef and also Goliath. These three are as close to fool-proof as it gets for warm climates.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by snippits

Better Boys and Big Boys are really popular here in NC. While I have grown lots and lots of Better Boys, I have never grown any Big Boys. I had one Super Fantastic plant that was not doing good, so I bought a Big Boy to replace it.

I know the Big Boy was bred first, so what is the major difference between a Big Boy and Better Boy?

The major difference between the two is the parentage since both have Teddy Jones as one parent but the other parent for both are different. How that translates out to taste and production one can only know by growing both in the same season.

I'm very partial to some of the earliest hybrids made public b/c of TASTE and yes, also production.

Ramapo F1 is one of them and both parents are known for that one.

And I very much like the earliest of the ones bred by Harris Seeds which are Jet Star F1, Supersonic F1 and Moreton Hybrid. All are vigorous plants with excellent taste IMO as well as great production.

IMO Big Beef is in no way a version of Better Boy.

I never say anything about disease tolerance, no such thing as resistance, b'c it depends on whether someone is talking about foliage diseases, which can be a problem for almost all in different seasons, as opposed to the many soilborne systemic diseases which are found in different parts of the country.

I also think that there are some OP varieties that are just as good as some of the hybrids as to taste and production and I may have mentioned one of them above, which is Break O Day. Others might include New Yorker, Manalucie, Marglobe, and more.

Carolyn

[ScottinAtlanta]

Carolyn, great post. I am always looking for more dependable plants to give to community gardens. It can be demotivating to fail with a more finicky plant such as Brandywine or Cherokee Purple, so I like to have a good mix of hybids in my giveaways. I will try those four you mentioned in my second planting this year: Ramapo F1, Jet Star F1, Supersonic F1 and Moreton Hybrid.

BTW, Better Boy is no more resistant to foliar diseases than the average heirloom, in my limited experience, at least here in the Deep South.

[Cheryl2017]

I am having the best success with tycoons this year. Very healthy nice round/oblate tomatoes with no splits/cracks and loaded. Now if they're palatable, I will grow them again

[TomatoDon]

For clarification...I meant that Big Beef and Goliath are very similar to Better Boy in habits, size, and taste. Usually if someone likes Better Boy then they also like Big Beef and Goliath. We can also add Big Boy to that list. I think Big Beef and Goliath are very similar to Better Boy, but are actually better.
I have no idea who bred what to who or when, the traceable background genetics, the biochemistry, or anything of a scientific nature along those lines. I just know how they grow and taste. In that regard they are similar, but Big Beef seems to be an improvement over Better Boy, as I said.

[gtnate]

So I have a question. How do they produce the same hybrid plants year after year? Do they keep crossing the two parents and then taking the seeds of the resulting fruits? If so, does that mean that there are still Teddy Jones plants being grown every year to produce better boy seeds?

[snippits]

Originally Posted by gtnate

So I have a question. How do they produce the same hybrid plants year after year? Do they keep crossing the two parents and then taking the seeds of the resulting fruits? If so, does that mean that there are still Teddy Jones plants being grown every year to produce better boy seeds?

Would like to know the answer to the question too.

I grow Big Beef too, and they do put out lots and lots of pretty tomatoes, and I do like the taste. But Better Boy just has that perfect blend of sweet and acid to my taste buds. Better Boy is just a tad more on the acid side than sweet.

My son last year had a fever blister, and he said the Better Boys were irritating his blister. I told him that was the Better Boy twang doing that, and he should eat the mellow tasting Mr. Stripey's. More Better Boys for me to eat and can! He does really like the Better Boys.

[ScottinAtlanta]

Since Caroln mentioned, Ramapo F1, I am referencing here a comparison between Ramapo F1 and Dona F1 that was interesting.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/l...514126799.html

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by gtnate

So I have a question. How do they produce the same hybrid plants year after year? Do they keep crossing the two parents and then taking the seeds of the resulting fruits? If so, does that mean that there are still Teddy Jones plants being grown every year to produce better boy seeds?

Last I knew, without confirming it, which I could, is that both Big Boy F1 and Better Boy F1 hybrid seeds were being produced by Petoseed in CA. Actually probably being done in the far east where most tomato seed production is done.

Yes, when new F1 seed for either one is wanted, and it may not be every year, Teddy Jones is grown as well as the other parents for both of them.

Plants are grown, and in the past the pollen bearing anthers of the blossoms were manually removed, called emasculation, so that no self pollenization can occur, and then pollen from the other parent is manually placed on the stigmas of those emasculated blossoms.

The fruits then have F1 seeds.

More recently those who produce F1 seed have been using what are called male steriles, meaning that there is no available pollen within the blossom so no self pollenization can occur.

This is a huge savings in labor costs from the manual emasculation of blossoms.

I don't know if Petoseed uses male steriles, or not. They can be created via application of inducers of mutation, and then looking for selections with no male parts.

Male steriles have also appeared spontaneously from time to time, but not in terms of varieties that would be used for F1 seed production as far as I know.

Carolyn

[NarnianGarden]

There is a question I've been wondering about regarding the F1 seed production: What happens to all the tomato fruits needed to create parental lines? Does anyone ever eat them, or are they all processed for seeds? It seems like a huge waste if they all go uneaten

Don't laugh at me, I am very economical and hate to see anything even slightly edible be thrown away

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by NarnianGarden

There is a question I've been wondering about regarding the F1 seed production: What happens to all the tomato fruits needed to create parental lines? Does anyone ever eat them, or are they all processed for seeds? It seems like a huge waste if they all go uneaten

Don't laugh at me, I am very economical and hate to see anything even slightly edible be thrown away

Could you clarify for me?

I don't know if you're referring to those hybrids that were some of the earliest ones offered to the public which have just two parents, such as Big Boy F1 or if you're referring to more modern F1's where yes, there are two OP lines with several different parental inputs in each line and the final OP in each line is then crossed with the final OP in the other line to create the F1 hybrid, which is much more complex.

Carolyn

[travis]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

More recently those who produce F1 seed have been using what are called male steriles, meaning that there is no available pollen within the blossom so no self pollenization can occur.

This is a huge savings in labor costs from the manual emasculation of blossoms.

I don't know if Petoseed uses male steriles, or not. They can be created via application of inducers of mutation, and then looking for selections with no male parts.

Male steriles have also appeared spontaneously from time to time, but not in terms of varieties that would be used for F1 seed production as far as I know.

Carolyn

The way to find out if a particular hybrid variety has one male sterile parent is to grow out a good number of F2 seeds that you saved from one of the tomatoes taken off the original hybrid plant you grew.

If you discover any seedlings that have an opaque, light green stems ... actually glassy green appearance ... then one parent most likely was a male sterile seed line.

Breeders use "markers" to identify various genetic traits, so that the breeder can readily identify the plants that carry the gene(s) they have targeted for incorporation into the F1 hybrid seed.

The marker gene used to identify male sterility is "aa" or "anthocyanin absent" which can be linked to male sterility. Seed lines that are aa marked to male sterility are referred to as "ms-10, aa" male sterile seed lines. The aa gene manifests glassy green stemmed seedlings as compared with normal seedlings in which the anthocyanin stains the young stems purple as is normally seen.

An examples of an F1 hybrid tomato variety that have an "ms-10, aa" male sterile linked to anthocyanin absent genetics is Plum Regal. And Carolyn is correct, it is much easier to apply pollen to male sterile (non-pollen producing) tomato flowers than it is to emasculate blossoms, and then apply pollen to the exposed stigma on a fragile, unsupported style. The lower price of tomato seeds thus produced is indicative of the labor cost savings.

Also, it is unadvisable to grow saved seeds from a hybrid tomato with ms-10, aa parentage, because you immediately get 25% green stem/male sterile F2 seedlings, and another 50% of the seedlings carry the masked gene which may appear in F3 or subsequent seed generations. If you were to grow ms-10, male sterile plants to maturity, you would never get a single tomato unless by manual or accidental pollination.

I do not know for sure if Big Beef or Better Boy has ms-10 parentage, but I highly doubt it as I have never heard anyone mention light green stemmed seedlings in the F2 grow-outs, and I have one line of tomatoes of which I grow dozens of seedlings each year that has Big Beef as one parent, and never have seen a glassy green stem seedling.

On the other hand, I have seen glassy green stems in F2 and F3 grow outs of Kumato, believe it or not, but I don't know for sure whether the aa in that instance is linked to ms-10 (because in fact, aa genetics can show up in fully fertile tomato varieties as well).

[travis]

Originally Posted by gtnate

So I have a question. How do they produce the same hybrid plants year after year? Do they keep crossing the two parents and then taking the seeds of the resulting fruits? If so, does that mean that there are still Teddy Jones plants being grown every year to produce better boy seeds?

Yes, exactly. The breeders maintain blocks of the parental lines from which they produce fresh F1 hybrid seeds each year as needed.

So, in the case of Big Boy and Better Boy, that means Peto, or whoever it is who produces the seed, maintains "Teddy Jones" and the other parental pure breeding line both of which are required to produce fresh F1 hybrid seed.

I put Teddy Jones into parentheses because I personally doubt that Teddy Jones today is the Teddy Jones of 1948. I say that because I feel the owner of the proprietary seed line allegedly known as Teddy Jones would surely select the best examples of said seed line each year in order to produce the best possible F1 seed from the best possible examples of the two parents.

But then who knows, cuz they ain's exactly sayin' now are they?

[Fusion_power]

Male sterile lines are not in Big Beef, Better Boy, or Big Boy though all three of them have one pink parent.

I bumped into a guy in California who was involved in Syngenta tomato breeding for a few years. He provided some surprising information about a few of the commercial hybrids. One of the more interesting tidbits is about Maxifort rootstock.

[Stvrob]

Ok...I'll bite. What about Maxifort? Is it really OP?