Problem with Red Brandywine

[Fusion_power]

The Red Brandywine that I grow was originally from a few seed Carolyn sent me about 7 years ago. They are highly productive regular leaf medium size tomatoes with decent but not exceptional flavor. They do cross from time to time as I have found by identifying a large fruited plant a couple of years ago. I've sent Glenn at Sandhill seed a few times and know for sure that what he sells are the right variety.

DarJones

[tam91]

Thank you. Silly of me - I use Tania's (wonderful!) site all the time, and do look up where to buy seed.

I had a regular leaf Red Brandywine this year - not sure if I want it again or not (of course, I'm not sure just what it was). It was medium sized fruit, pretty productive, and pretty good. Not amazing flavor though, just good.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

The Red Brandywine that I grow was originally from a few seed Carolyn sent me about 7 years ago. They are highly productive regular leaf medium size tomatoes with decent but not exceptional flavor. They do cross from time to time as I have found by identifying a large fruited plant a couple of years ago. I've sent Glenn at Sandhill seed a few times and know for sure that what he sells are the right variety.

DarJones

I don't know what's happened to RB in the past b'c when I was growing it it was a darn good tasting variety. Maybe I should go back and fetch some of my VERY old seeds sometime and see if it's what I remembered.

I don't think as many places as do sell seeds for it would do so if it weren't a good variety.

Darrel, I never had RB cross for me. When I was still growing hundreds of plants and varieties each season and listing hundreds of varieties in the SSE YEarbook there were only a few that turned out to cross easily.

Aunt Ruby's Green was one of them and Cherokee Green faked me out once but I had three plants of it and two were fine and the third gave me pale yellow spitters. I ran across the seeds still on plates of that spitter just last week when I was looking for some other variety.

There were two more that crossed easily but right now I can't remember them.

And that's growing where I do with the potential pollinators that I have and knowing they were most active early in the season I always saved seed from later maturing fruits. No bagged blossoms either. And my crossing rate was about 5% which means out of seed saved from 100 varieties about 5 will turn out to be crossed.

And that level of X pollination for specific fruits can vary widely since if complete self pollenization doesn't occur, then any X pollination can lead to fertilization of any non-fertilized ovules in the tomato ovary and those can vary widely as well.

I can have a batch of maybe 2000 seeds and distribute seed for close to 1000 seeds before I or anyone else reports an off type.

Last year I listed Serdtse Buivola in my free seed offer here and sent out lots of seed and just one person got an offtype as far as I know, and no one who got them from me via my SSE listing did, but then the feedback I get here at Tville is more than I ever got from my SSE listed ones.

[Fusion_power]

Carolyn,

Crosses happen, fortunately not often. I agree that Red Brandywine is in the "not often" category. But once in a while it does get promiscuous like all the tomatoes I've grown. Others that get around are Dr. Carolyn Pink and Galina which is its parent.

When I said the flavor was good but not exceptional, I would have rated it as 8.0 or maybe 8.5. A really good Nepal would rate 8.75 and an outstanding Brandywine Sudduth would go 9.25. For comparison, I've had 2 tomatoes that hit the top and shoved my overall flavor scale off the chart. One was Sunlucky which is still segregating heavily.

DarJones

[tam91]

This year I tasted my Red Brandywine compared to a Delicious, which is supposed to be decent for a hybrid.

I didn't find the Brandywine way better, not even sure I liked it the best.

However - I did buy the plant from a nursery, so who knows if it was the tru Red Brandywine.

Now I'm being inclined to try it again, making sure I have the real thing.

How do you think Red Brandywine compares to Brandywine OTV?

[Barbee]

I have used the same seed all three years.

Is it possible your seed could be diseased?

[Mark0820]

Originally Posted by Barbee

Is it possible your seed could be diseased?

It's possible. I purchased the seed so I'll never know for sure. I'm definitely not planting the same seed again. Diseased seed would be the most logical explanation as to why the Red Brandywine plants are the only plants that die.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Mark0820

It's possible. I purchased the seed so I'll never know for sure. I'm definitely not planting the same seed again. Diseased seed would be the most logical explanation as to why the Red Brandywine plants are the only plants that die.

However all of your plants would be exposed to foliage diseases and I have a hard time seeing one variety die b'c of a systemic disease such as Fusarium or Verticillium, etc. Systemic diseases aren't that common in Ohio and even if you had one in your garden soil I can't see that one variety would be affected and not others.

Did you ever make a deifinitive diagnosis of what they died from based on the symptoms that you saw?

[Mark0820]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

However all of your plants would be exposed to foliage diseases and I have a hard time seeing one variety die b'c of a systemic disease such as Fusarium or Verticillium, etc. Systemic diseases aren't that common in Ohio and even if you had one in your garden soil I can't see that one variety would be affected and not others.

Did you ever make a deifinitive diagnosis of what they died from based on the symptoms that you saw?

I am fairly certain early blight is one disease, but doubt this caused the plants to die. I just looked at a variety of diseases, and Fusarium best describes the problem I had. The lower (older) leaves would turn yellow first (I kept these leaves pruned.). Then, before the plant died, the entire plant turned yellow. This last step (entire plant turning yellow) happened fairly quickly (much quicker than when the older, lower leaves turned yellow). I can't quantify the amount of time, but it seemed like the entire plant turned yellow with little to no warning. Maybe it just seemed more quickly because the entire plant turned yellow compared to when only a few leaves were turning yellow. I don't know if there are any other diseases besides Fusarium that would describe this process.

Just to clarify my original message, my other varieties had signs of this disease, but they seemed to handle it much better than Red Brandywine. The other varieties would survive the season, and it wasn't as pronounced.

When Barbee mentioned diseased seed, it made me wonder if the Red Brandywine plants were compromised more quickly because of the seed and therefore they didn't withstand the disease for as long of a period. I am just speculating at this point, because I am not an expert in this topic.

[RinTinTin]

Do you mean 'diseased seeds', or 'contaminated seeds'? I may be wrong (please correct me if so), but I doubt that the seed would 'contain' the disease...if it did, shouldn't that give it some immunity (like a flu shot, or other vaccine)? I can certainly understand contaminating the seeds, once collected, but not the seed carrying a disease gene within itself.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by RinTinTin

Do you mean 'diseased seeds', or 'contaminated seeds'? I may be wrong (please correct me if so), but I doubt that the seed would 'contain' the disease...if it did, shouldn't that give it some immunity (like a flu shot, or other vaccine)? I can certainly understand contaminating the seeds, once collected, but not the seed carrying a disease gene within itself.

RTT, most of the pathogens that are fungal are found on the exterior of the seed coat while most of the bacterial and viral pathogens that we know about. I mean the ones that have been Ided in the interior, are found in the endosperm of the seed. And b'c of the latter, when it comes to bacterial pathogens youll see that various websites offer seeds treated with hot water, which does help but also reduces the viability of the seeds being treated.

Fermentation and most of the other methods used to process seeds can reduce, but not eliminate the pathogen burden on the seed coat but can't do anything to what's inside.

Luckily fungal foliage pathogens are the most common pathogens of tomatoes and since infection is quantitative, being able to reduce the fungal pathogens on the exterior also can cut down on seed mediated transmission.

[RinTinTin]

Hmm. Interesting. So the seed can contain the pathogen inside, rather than just on the outside. Thank you for that info. So in other words, it would be beneficial to be extra selective in choosing which fruits/plants to save seed from.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by RinTinTin

Hmm. Interesting. So the seed can contain the pathogen inside, rather than just on the outside. Thank you for that info. So in other words, it would be beneficial to be extra selective in choosing which fruits/plants to save seed from.

Since none of us want to take on hot water treatments, which are dicey, I pay no attention whatsoever to any diseases that my plants might have in terms of using fruits for fermentation, which I prefer b'c it' natural.

Where I live and grow tomatoes there are no systemic diseases to worry about.

And to date I don't know of one instance where any seeds that I've sent out have resulted in diseased plants.

But I do know that Fusarium has been a problem for some and seeds with Fusarium have been sent out by some non-commercial folks.

So folks who do have problems with some of the systemic diseases might want to pay more attention to that.

Fairly recently the oxyclean/comet methods were being discussed elsewhere and I asked if anyone had any data to show how effective they were in ridding the seed exterior of pathogens but no one knew of any.

I know that fermentation does remove most but not all of the pathogens on the seed coat from the results of Dr. Helene Dillard who worked at the USDA station at Geneva, NY and who did those assays with either grants from Campbell's or Heinz, I can't remember which company right now.

[Mark0820]

I could buy some new Brandywine seed and see if the problem goes away next year. That would provide some clarity as to the fact there is a problem with the seed (which it appears there is).

However, I do have limited space and have never planted any of the hearts. Therefore, I was thinking of trading in my Red Brandywine problem for some hearts. I will see if I can still squeeze in one Brandywine plant.

[Barbee]

I vote you just chuck the seeds and grow the hearts you've been wanting to try If you have limited space why waste it on a plant that isn't cutting the mustard?