Better Bush Hybrid

[CarolynPhillips]

Has anyone tried Better Bush for market production?

It is a beautiful plant. The fruit taste good. .

Good leaf/fruit coverage.

But what about production?

Is there a bush variety that can beat it in taste and production?

Bonnie Plant farm claims their better bush plants in their test garden produced 90 to 120 fruit. Grows up to 4 ft tall.

I was seriously thinking about growing a small garden plot of these.

I have grown it in containers before. But never kept up with the production.
It was poorly tended and had fruit up until frost except for during the heat of summer. A tomato plant isn't worth much once the heat of summer hits. (july-aug)

growing in a pot.......

[CarolynPhillips]

seriously? wow. thanks.

[mysidx]

Don't worry, sometimes my questions or posts don't always get answered.

You're not alone.....

[rnewste]

Carolyn,

I think you have to understand the primary interest in Heirlooms vs. hybrids for the vast majority of Tomatoville members. I have read through dozens of posts of folk's grow lists - and can never remember anyone here growing Better Bush Hybrid.

Your question started with: "Has anyone tried Better Bush Hybrid for market". My guess is that you could probably count on one hand the number of Tomatoville folks who have grown it for market - - maybe less. Don't be surprised if no one is here with on-hands experience with this hybrid variety.

Raybo

[DuckCreekFarms]

never grown it. most of the market growers here rely on Celebrity for a determinate hybrid.

[jennifer28]

I have grown better bush in my home garden and also with my students in our school garden. we grew this hybrid out last year.

We don't exactly "grow for market" at school, but what we do not eat at the school we do sell for fundraisers.

I am someone who loves a bold tomato taste - I am a big fan of the heirloom pantano romanesco. So I didn't really like the taste of this hybrid, I found it pretty bland.

The production was very good, got at least a bushel off one plant. But I couldn't get past the taste. Also the problem with the taste of this tomato is that it didn't stand out among other varieties, and if you want to sell something special at market I don't think this would be the thing to sell.

I did find that this plant crapped out in july, to my disappointment. our other varieties went until frost. We are in zone 6 on the coast of Connecticut, we are a little warmer than upstate connecticut.

Have you ever tried mountain spring? That one is a good producer that we sometimes grow out for "pick your own tomatoes off the vine" events and we have had a lot of success with that. They look prettier than better bush, too.

I personally vote for mountain spring over better bush... but that is just my experience.

[Fusion_power]

I've grown Better Bush and even offered plants for sale in years past. It is still on my master seed list but I will be deleting it this year. I was not very impressed with the variety and demand was always very low.

http://www.selectedplants.com/varieties.htm

DarJones

[jennifer28]

Dar,

I love your site. You really have a talent for describing tomatoes. Ever think of writing a book? Just a suggestion. After looking at your list I am getting interested in Absinthe. I'm going to go do some research on it.

[CarolynPhillips]

I am soaking all this in. Someone gave me fruit from the Celebrity but their shoulders are kinda rough.==aren't they? I like the flavor. Never grew it myself. Saw it in my sisters' garden.

Jennifer, I was thinking about trying Mountain Spring. I was told that they had a bland flavor so I was afraid to try it. Scary. I will look into that Pantano Romanesco.

Raybo- I had no idea that hybrid was a bad word around here. My lovely Big Beef will be so sad to hear this. I normally grow the Big Beef for market produce and it hasn't felled me yet but they are high maintenance. I tried the Big Beef OP and i didn't like it.

I really like Brandywine and so do a lot of my customers but they crack very easily and most are wasted.


Thanks to everyone for your opinion on Better Bush.
I am in search of a low maintenance , good tasting tomato with good production.
Appearance is important too.

[feldon30]

I don't think hybrid is a bad word here. Some of my favorite varieties are Sungold, Sweet Quartz, Momotaro, and Jet Star. And I've heard good things about Big Beef.

But most of us grow for flavor first and foremost, and then productivity, and barely consider getting a smooth/uniform fruit shape as a factor in variety selection.

Maybe I'm a tomato snob, but I lump Mountain Spring, Celebrity, etc. into the category of "slightly better than the grocery store".

Also, generally speaking, the best flavored tomatoes have rarely come from determinate (bush) varieties. Of course there are exceptions, and you may want to take a look at the Dwarf Project which now has over 40 varieties of flavorful tomatoes growing on 3-5 foot tall compact to semi-compact plants.

Ultimately you have to find out what your market wants, and grow the produce that will sell. If you can grow a perfectly red, round, smooth tomato with a mild flavor and sell lots of them, then who are we to judge? However there may be an untapped market of customers who would pay twice as much for tomatoes that look like this:

[jennifer28]

Carolyn,

Warning: just my opinion

I used to only grow hybrids at one point in my life. Then I got really annoyed with the "suicide seeds" that are meant to be sterile. And I decided that if I purchased those seeds, then I was promoting more production of something that is not good for our world for many reasons. So I stopped buying and growing those.

Here is the rational part: I wanted to have varieties that I knew grew well in my area and growing conditions. What better way to do that than to experiment with heirlooms and save the seeds from ones that worked well for me? I could save a lot of money that way, too. So that is what I did.

What I would truly recommend growing:
You may want to try heirlooms that were designed for market and commercial purposes. This way you get some disease resistance and a plant that was bread to bear a lot of fruit and to be dependable. Tomatoes in this list would be:
Campbell's 146 (you can order them from Sand Hill Preservation)
Rutgers
Campbell's 1327
New Yorker
Heinz H9129
Pakmore (these you can get on ebay)

The rest of the seeds you could get from Tatiana's Tomatobase or Tomatofest. Those are both wonderful suppliers.

I hope you find what works for you! Thank you for reading.

[CarolynPhillips]

I wanted opinions. Opinions are good. Opinions make the world go round.
Amongst the decisions of which tomato to grow, our opinions are like taste buds...we all have one and they are all different which makes choosing a tomato difficult sometimes but interesting to hear what someone else has to say even if its different.


I grow a couple thousand Rutgers tomato plants for customers but have never tried it myself. Along with 10,000 other plants of different varieties.

As for the Better Bush in question. I will have to grow a few and see how the production is from experience. So far the opinions I have collected from those who actually grew it has been .....2 bad, 7 good. and not all was from tomatoville.

still in search for low maintenance.....all around good taste, good appearance.
Around here= folks don't want cracked shoulders and big cores. IT is a factor rather I like it or not.

[travis]

If you are thinking of growing Mountain Spring as a short stake, determinate variety in Alabama, I would suggest Mountain Glory instead for its improved disease resistance to problems endemic to the Southeast. Mountain Glory is an improved version of Mountain Spring.

Another short stake, determinate hybrid that does well in the Deep South is Florida 7514 which has Neptune as one of its parents, and resists Bacterial Spot and Speck, along with nematode root knot. If you want an open pollinated, short stake determinate market tomato with the same general characteristics as Florida 7514, you might try Neptune as well, however the fruit will be smaller, and about half the size of Mountain Glory.

Better Bush is a popular bedding plant sales item for Bonnie Plant Farms, and the seeds are cheap by comparison to many more sophisticated determinate hybrids, which is why I think you continue to see Better Bush transplants in so many nursery and big box spring sales racks.

[OldHondaNut]

I have grown Campbells 1327, Heinz 1439 (?), Rutgers and all are pretty similar - good taste and all. If I get 10 pounds out of each, it is successful. A hybrid like Bush Big Boy usually produces 20 pounds a plant. There is room in my garden for both.

The Better Bush looks much like Bush Big Boy to me.

[CarolynPhillips]

Okie dokie Jennifer. I am giving the Pantano Romanesco a shot. I ordered the seeds from tomatofest. along with a few other OP and heirlooms.
don't knock it until you try it===right?

I haven't heard of the bush big boy til now.