BIG BEEF HYPE...

[grodematers]

Just watch some videos about it on the web. There all true. My first year with it, and it impressed me. It is a prolific plant.

[Cole_Robbie]

My mom has her biggest yield of tomatoes ever, because I gave her mostly Big Beef plants.

[riceke]

I would rate it has my top 3 hybrid tomatoes.

[kygreg]

I grow approx. 90-100 heirloom/op varieties each year. The only 2 hybrids I grow each year are Big Beef and Goliath. I recommended BB to a friend who grows Better Boy/ Best Boy each year. This year he grew 6 Big Beefs and said he would never go back Big or Better Boy.

[kygreg]

Originally Posted by riceke

I would rate it has my top 3 hybrid tomatoes.

What would be the other 2 in your top 3?

Thanks.

[riceke]

Bella Rossa did great for me as well as Big Beef and the other hybrid although not a slicer but can be depended on for high production is Juliette (egg shaped). So it's Big Beef, Bella Rosa and Juliette

[b54red]

Originally Posted by TightenUp

i am growing big beef for the first time this season. it has grown into a huge plant just loaded with tomatoes. for production its hard to beat.

however i'm also growing brandy boy this season and it beats it hands down in taste and production is pretty close. if you're looking for a red slicer brandy boy isn't it. it's a large pink beefsteak averaging over a pound for me. i have a second brandy boy plant in a 20 gallon container and its also doing fantastic with just slightly smaller tomatoes than the in ground plant.

if i could only recommend one hybrid it would be brandy boy, not big beef.

If you are not dealing with soil borne disease issues you are definitely correct about Brandy Boy but there are a lot of tomatoes that are better tasting but few as disease tolerant with decent taste.

I love Brandy Boy but to grow it down here I have to graft it onto a more disease tolerant rootstock in order to get more than 4 or 5 tomatoes before it dies.

Bill

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Lee

Bill you had an extra word in your description of Amelia.... "as". Definitely remove the as.

Lee

They are decent when grown here in my soil but I agree it is not a tomato I would grow for fresh eating. I am growing some this fall for sauce though and I am also using it as a rootstock for grafting to see how it works. It is the most disease tolerant tomato I have ever seen and boy is it a vigorous grower. You have to be careful planting them because as soon as they hit the ground they start growing. I am hoping some of those production and growth traits will positively affect some of the scions.

Bill

[AKmark]

I never would have thought that folks in the south would face challenges growing late season varieties. Do you have to grow all highly disease resistant varieties? Is it at all feasable to erect a greenhouse in Alabama for protection? I did not know disease was so bad down there, is it every year? Is BB your fav. reliable? I always preferred Early Girl in taste, as do most folks up here, but we are not even close to your area, so taste may be affected to. I also guess Brandyboy is not as disease resistant, too bad I love those.
Anyway your reasoning opened my eyes to the fact, that most struggle in their own environments as bad as we do in AK, only different fights.

[OmahaJB]

Didn't realize Big Beef was so well thought of. I grew it one year and it was ok as far as production and taste, but I preferred Pink Girl when I grew it the following year. Better taste and production for me. But considering I only grew them one year each my study is premature at this point.

[WhippoorwillG]

I grew big beef for the first time this year and want to give it at least one more try before moving on. It was the only F1 slicer out of over 100 varieties and one of the earliest to succumb to disease. I am in the South, but it started going down early????

The tomatoes I did get were mostly smooth and blemish free with decent flavor, so they sold quickly at market. Worth one more try.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[kygreg]

Originally Posted by riceke

Bella Rossa did great for me as well as Big Beef and the other hybrid although not a slicer but can be depended on for high production is Juliette (egg shaped). So it's Big Beef, Bella Rosa and Juliette

Have not tried Bella Rosa, will have to take a look at it. I have tried Juliette more than once and like it, except that for me the skins seem to be a little tough.

[TomatoDon]

A friend in my home town mentioned Pink Girl specifically recently. That was what the name tag said. He told me that Pink Girl was his favorite tomato of this year.

In my area Big Beef and Goliath are the two most popular these days. Of the commercial back yard tomato barons who sell tomatoes the favorite is Goliath.

BTW...I checked my totals today and have picked 459 tomatoes out of my back yard raised bed. It's 5 x 12 and has Big Beef, Big Boy, and Better Boy. I think I posted in another thread earlier in the season that I was hoping to get 500 from that one patch and I think I will make it.

We've picked 85 at the farm, out of four beds. Not sure why the ones in town have done so much better. All are raised beds, same dimensions, same soil mix. The ones in town were planted a little earlier, so they probably were producing way before the ones at the farm.

I think the total for the year is 844, but I know I've left out one or two small pickings. I should break 1,000 within a week.

DS

[riceke]

Originally Posted by kygreg

Have not tried Bella Rosa, will have to take a look at it. I have tried Juliette more than once and like it, except that for me the skins seem to be a little tough.

They are a little tough but that is probably why they remain succesful. Don't seem to split and in my case weren't bothered that much by bugs.

Bella Rosa almost is the same as Big Beef in production and size but are a shorter plant. Altho I never plnated them in pots they have been reommended for pot growing or should I say container growing.

[kygreg]

The primary hybrid grown in my area is Mountain Fresh; that is because it is the main crop tomato for the Mennonite/Amish farmers in the area. I have not grown it; did grow Mountain Pride and Mountain Spring a few years ago.