Expectations

[AKmark]

I have a few projects I am tinkering with, but this may just be my fav so far. This is an F3 of my Brandywine X Bloody Butcher cross, that Sherry Sheisal and I did last year, they are very early, the taste is excellent, and they are production machines of beautiful fruit that is market quality.
I grew out 10 f2's to make my selection, and lucky for me the earliest one had a slight beefsteak appearance, which I want, on average weighed from 3-6 oz, or so, and the taste was memorable.
I grew out 18 F3's, they are pretty consistent in shape and size, 12 went in the greenhouse, 6 went into the outside garden June 30th to see if I can get ripe fruit before frost. We have began tasting the fruit, we are seeing some variation there, it will be a week or so before we get through them all to find a favorite. The fruit size on these are also slightly larger than previous generations, and seems to be about 4-7oz average, with the first fruits being up to a pound. I also really like how the fruit on the trusses ripens close to the same time.
The plants in the picks were planted at the end of May, from the f2 that was started in January.
I am hoping to end up with a Brandywine quality OP line, that will produce very fast, yield well, look appealing, and tolerate cooler weather. That's not asking for too much. lol

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by AKmark

I have a few projects I am tinkering with, but this may just be my fav so far. This is an F3 of my Brandywine X Bloody Butcher cross, that Sherry Sheisal and I did last year, they are very early, the taste is excellent, and they are production machines of beautiful fruit that is market quality.
I grew out 10 f2's to make my selection, and lucky for me the earliest one had a slight beefsteak appearance, which I want, on average weighed from 3-6 oz, or so, and the taste was memorable.
I grew out 18 F3's, they are pretty consistent in shape and size, 12 went in the greenhouse, 6 went into the outside garden June 30th to see if I can get ripe fruit before frost. We have began tasting the fruit, we are seeing some variation there, it will be a week or so before we get through them all to find a favorite. The fruit size on these are also slightly larger than previous generations, and seems to be about 4-7oz average, with the first fruits being up to a pound. I also really like how the fruit on the trusses ripens close to the same time.
The plants in the picks were planted at the end of May, from the f2 that was started in January.
I am hoping to end up with a Brandywine quality OP line, that will produce very fast, yield well, look appealing, and tolerate cooler weather. That's not asking for too much. lol

Your cross is very much the same as Stanley Zubrowski in Canada did. he crossed Brandywine with 5 earlies, all red, I can only remember Glacier and Siberian and Stupice now, he sent me F1 seeds of all 5 crosses and all were red small ones,expected since small fruit size is dominant to large fruit size.

His goal was to introduce better taste into some earlies. Time for me to give you a couple of links rather thandoing more typing. From the Stupice cross camethis one:

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/w...irdrie_Classic

And now more on the same subject:

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=16696

Were all of your F1 fruits kind of mini beefsteaks and I ask b'c that's what I got.

Carolyn

[AKmark]

Hi Carolyn, the F1 will throw a few beefsteak looking tomatoes, 6-8oz, but 95 percent are perfectly round and blemish free, 3-4oz, the F2 is where I saw more variation, and is why I planted a few to select from. I also had two in the f2's come out pink, and about BB size.

I have crossed BB to several great heirlooms, another good one is the BB X Dester x but I am just growing the F1 for now, very rich tomato taste, a few days behind BW X BB. These are my two favorites. have backcrossed the BW X BB F1 into the line as well, and crossed the BB X Dester into the F2 for more interesting combinations.
I have about 40-50 plants of many early varieties growing outside, I am keeping pretty good notes, and of course I take a lot of pictures for records, so we will just find out how everything does in time.
I can say, "since everything I grow gets the same fair shake, these crosses I mentioned are truly wonderful taste-wise."

Thanks for the links, I appreciate that
Mark in AK

[ddsack]

Mark, so glad you are doing this, we need more early medium and bigger sized tomatoes. Your plants and fruit look terrific! Here's hoping BB's early maturity will stick with your selections. Do you have a name in mind yet for a finished version?

[AKmark]

ddsack, we do have a name, but I am going to wait until it is a stable line to tag it. I can easily do two generations per year, almost three, so it won't be long.
I also have plants from all three generations going, so I will post some pics of the F1, and in the F2 you can see the subtle changes, and pics of some that were not used.
For the F4's, I will plant them with a couple F1's to see how early they are when compared to the original cross which beat Early Girl this year.
We also did BB X Fred Limbaugh, they are third best of the BB crosses.
Just fun stuff to share.
Mark.

[ddsack]

How cool that you and Sherry have connected on tomatoes, I'm sure her breeding experience with the dwarf project is very helpful. Isn't it fun just seeing all the combinations come out in the F2's! I'm really looking forward to your results!

[AKmark]

I had quite the surprise this season with the F 4's of my Brandywine x Bloody Butcher cross. I planted 8 F1's again, 8 from the F3 plant (B) which was the earliest, and 40 plant (A) F3's, which was excellent tasting, and still quite early for a beefsteak type. This round 8 of 40 are nearly as early as the F1, and much larger beefsteak type of fruit.
Up to this point I have not been able to recapture the very early nature of the F1. Now, I have to taste all of them, judge yields, plant structures, most are shorter, stout type plants, I like that, and tomato shapes are considered too. I will plant 75-100 of the winners, and at the rate they are growing that will be mid May for two generations this year. I hope to see more like 50 percent early traits this round, but that's only a guess since I stumble my way through this stuff, but I am very patient too.
I will also redo the cross this year, the F1 is just terrific, smooth fruit, early, and super tasty.
I also selected a small pink fruiting plant in the F2, I am going to try to get a pink Bloody Butcher type of tomato captured, I have 5 of the F3 of those going too. We will call the stable main focus plants the Mat-Su Express since I live between the Matanuska and Susitna Valleys, and they are quite early. The F1 last year performed like a charm outside up here, others in better climates should be very happy with that cross.
I saw Sherry the other day, now we are putting Delicious to BB, as well as Chapman and Yellow BW, obviously I am hooked on BB crosses. LOL
Anyway...

[Al@NC]

Akmark, I just read your thread and your experiments sound interesting to me. I grew Bloody Butcher last year for the first time (bought a plant at a local nursery) and really enjoyed it. I liked it enough to keep seed and have been trying to think up a good dark tomato cross with BB but have yet to decide what to cross BB with. Your crosses sound great and I look forward to reading about future crosses...

Al

[AKmark]

I also crossed BB with Bear Creek for an early dark tomato, I have the F1's growing now, we will just have to see how they pan out.

[bower]

Awesome to hear you're making so much progress with this cross, Mark.
It's fantastic that you can grow so many plants, and even get two generations in a year.
Also brilliant to produce more F1 seed, since it's such a good one.
I was hoping to try your F1 this year, but my resources for growing are tenuous and I had to scale back my tomato starts, knowing that the plants may end up with nowhere to go.

Re: selecting for earliness - in my crosses here, I selected for early flowering first in the F2, and hoping to find the combination of desired traits somewhere in the 'early' pool of F2's. I had the impression that earliness does segregate out in the first couple of generations, but I may be wrong. Another option is to make crosses between generations or siblings down the line, to try and recapture the full package earliness/size/texture/taste. I know it's difficult to get larger fruit that are early - and why they're hard to find! - but for certain you have the best chance to do that with such a large grow out. Very exciting project for us short season folks.
Best of luck with your season, and I look forward to your updates!

[efisakov]

Mark, have you considered Indian Stripe PL or JD's Special C-Tex? BK, IS and JD are about the same 75 days from transplanting.

I am looking forward to see what will come out of your experiments. I am sure it will be interesting. Best of luck.

[AKmark]

Bower, I did select the earliest in the F2, but it was at least 10 days later than the F1, maybe even a tad later, that is why I was so surprised to see the early trait of several F 4's show up. You know I sell plants and fruit too, my customers loved that F1, and for several people it was a favorite, so I just listen to them.
Ella, I have tried those and I do like them too, but I did not think to try a cross to them. I do have a PL Black Krim X PL Early girl, isn't JD's a cross with EG?

[bower]

Mark, that's good to know! I'll be keeping an eye out for any more earliness segregation in my later generations too then.

[efisakov]

Originally Posted by AKmark

Bower, I did select the earliest in the F2, but it was at least 10 days later than the F1, maybe even a tad later, that is why I was so surprised to see the early trait of several F 4's show up. You know I sell plants and fruit too, my customers loved that F1, and for several people it was a favorite, so I just listen to them.
Ella, I have tried those and I do like them too, but I did not think to try a cross to them. I do have a PL Black Krim X PL Early girl, isn't JD's a cross with EG?

You are right, JD is cross of BK and EG. No wonder I like it.

[AKmark]

The BW X BB F4 (plant A, from the f3 selection) has proved to be quite early for me. It is side by side many other varieties and is only second in earliness to the F1 by about a week, but has much larger fruit.
These are 102 days from seed sprout, I just redid the days to make sure. Will taste them tonight or tomorrow, if they pass I will save seed and sprout all of them for a F5 selection.

Plant (B) is also ripening, but they are freaks, yield-wise, never seen any like them, they pile on 5-10 oz fruit like a cherry tomato plant does mini fruit. LOL