Potato leaf Red Brandywine

[Daylilyfanatic4]

I recently acquired red brandywine seeds from a trade. When I grew the seed I ended up ( much to my suprise) with a potato leaf tomato. Before I assume that this is some sort of mislabeling I wanted to make sure that there are no potato leaf red brandywine out there.

[tam91]

There is a potato leaf "red brandywine". TGS sells it. However, it is not the real red brandywine.

[coloken]

Yes, there is a PL tomato called red BW, but it is not the true red BW or BW red. It is a pretty god tomato from all reports. It is too bad that some sellers still list it without telling you what it is. Actually the true red BW is hard to find. Many discussions on this here. My understanding is the the true RL red BW is in fact not a BW at all, but on its own,

[RayR]

There is thread about the PL Red Brandywine from not long ago here

I also have some PL Red Brandywine plants growing. Never grew them before.

[Daylilyfanatic4]

Well I guess I have the Potato leaf red brandywine. Can anyone tell me about this variety? A description from reimer seeds reads as follows

85 days. Lycopersicon esculentum. Plant produces high yields of 12 oz red beefsteak tomatoes. Tomatoes have a sweet rich tomato flavor and turn red when mature. Excellent for salads and sandwiches. It is named after the Brandywine River in Pennsylvania, USA. This is the potato leaf brandywine variety. A heirloom variety from the USA. Indeterminate. pk/10

That sounds a lot like the Landis strain which is what I was orginaly looking for. Is this potato leaf tomato somehow connected to the landis red brandywine? If not where is this tomato from? It seems to be a pre 1900 variety so someone must have grown it.

I'm interested in using the variety I have in a breeding project, so before I go making crosses I want to make sure I know exactly what I have.

[Daylilyfanatic4]

I emailed the person I orginally got the seeds from and apparently it is NOT red brandywine at all. He had a labeling mix up and his "pink brandywines" got labeled as red.

I'm now trying to figure out what strain of "pink brandywine" this plant is. He said he got the seeds from Cami Chef from PA Since I is next to O on the keyboard I assuming that he meant tville member camochef. Anyway if your out there and keep really good trading records maybe you could tell me what strain of brandywine you sent to a particular person back in 2009?

Since that is probably impossible can anyone give me any clues on how to differentiate between cowlicks sudduth's and "regular" strains if it is even possible. Thanks for the help.

[TZ-OH6]

It was supposedly sent out (mislabeled) by the seed farm Seeds by Design in California. There is no history before that that anyone knows of, which is odd because red beefsteak potatoleaf varieties are very rare. Many seed venders got that seed when they asked the wholesaler for Red Brandywine.

I grew it a couple of years ago from Tomatofest seed. It did better for me than Mortgage Lifter. It's a average-big indeterminant with good flavor one pound beefsteaks. I don't remember it being overly acid or overly sweet. Production was decent.

[FILMNET]

MY PL Brandywine plant last year

[carolyn137]

Knowing Camo in PA I will have to assume that the seeds sent are what he calls Cowlicks Brandywine . He got a plant at a nursery with that name and thought it did exceptianlly well for him so named it Cowlicks.

But I don't see it as one of the recognized strains of Brandywine and probably the folks at that nursery didn't know what they had either.

So grow it, enjoy it, and don't worry about it all that much although I will mention that Cowlicks has both a PL and RL version as folks have found out with the passage of time.

Not nice of me but with all the great places to get tomato seed Reimer's would be close to the bottom of any list Imigh have although I probably wouldn't even put them on a list.

No time to edit, T-storm approaching.

[coloken]

Originally Posted by Daylilyfanatic4

I emailed the person I orginally got the seeds from and apparently it is NOT red brandywine at all. He had a labeling mix up and his "pink brandywines" got labeled as red.

I'm now trying to figure out what strain of "pink brandywine" this plant is. He said he got the seeds from Cami Chef from PA Since I is next to O on the keyboard I assuming that he meant tville member camochef. Anyway if your out there and keep really good trading records maybe you could tell me what strain of brandywine you sent to a particular person back in 2009?

Since that is probably impossible can anyone give me any clues on how to differentiate between cowlicks sudduth's and "regular" strains if it is even possible. Thanks for the help.

If it is pink and PL it could be any one of a whole bunch of brandy wines and brandy wine named related, EXCEPT the TRUE RED BRANDY WINE.
Grow it and enjoy...there are a lot of mis-named seeds out there from name brand suppliers. (ask me how I know).

[camochef]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Knowing Camo in PA I will have to assume that the seeds sent are what he calls Cowlicks Brandywine . He got a plant at a nursery with that name and thought it did exceptianlly well for him so named it Cowlicks.

But I don't see it as one of the recognized strains of Brandywine and probably the folks at that nursery didn't know what they had either.

So grow it, enjoy it, and don't worry about it all that much although I will mention that Cowlicks has both a PL and RL version as folks have found out with the passage of time.

Not nice of me but with all the great places to get tomato seed Reimer's would be close to the bottom of any list Imigh have although I probably wouldn't even put them on a list.

No time to edit, T-storm approaching.

Carolyn,
During the time period mentioned, I did send out many Cowlick Brandywine seeds all over the world. They were all Potato-leafed and continueed to be until I received a bunch of R.L. seeds back from Jon in Ala., who got his seed from another person in N.C. Not sure if to many people handling seeds created a mix-up or not...but all that I've grown from my own seed have always been Potato Leafed.
During that same period I also sent out Brandywine-Glick's and Brandywine-Sudduth's to many, so they could compare them to Cowlick's. Also sent plain old Brandywine and Brandywine Pink as well as different Black Brandywines. Most that I send seeds to get between 40-50 packs of seeds in a mailing and many are Brandywines or similar varieties. ( Ed's Millenium, Earl's Faux, Limbaugh's Legacy, Barlow Jap, Stump of the World, etc).
While I have grown both Regular Leafed and Potato-Leafed Red Brandywines...I sent out very few seeds to others. I don't recall ever sending any P.L. red Brandywines but cannot swear to that.
As you know, I love Brandywines and Brandywine crosses (Liz Birt, Dora, Gary O'Sena, Bear Creek) as well as DDRXBR-C which I'm growing a few plants of again this year.
Oh, The Original "Cowlick's" was labeled either "Brandywine" or "Pink Brandywine", but it out-performed the 20 other Brandywines I was growing that first year both in Taste and Production and did so up till the last day of Oct when a killing frost did it in. It was the only tomato still producing and was still loaded with large green tomatoes then.
I sent seed to a friend in SW Kansas who never had good luck growing Brandywines and they did very well for him. Since then they've been sent to every state in the USA and to many other countries and they have done well for most.
I admit that last year in the extreme heat and drought here, they didn't perform as well as they have in the past and my BW-Glick's and BW-Sudduth's actually did better for the first time since 2006.
So far this year is like 2009, much cooler and wetter than normal, so we'll see what they all do as well as a few new ones! Enjoy! and Good Luck with your gardens and the weather.
Camo

[carolyn137]

Camo, maybe you and daylily can get together via PM and he can tell you who he got the seeds from, who got them from you, and maybe find out which seeds you sent to that person.

I keep a notebook with the names/addresses of all the varieties I send to a person, aside from my SSE listings and SASE free seed offers at Tville, but I don't know if you or others keep such a notebook.

[Jeannine Anne]

Well this is interesting. I raise tomato plants for sharing in a community garden. A tray of 40 plants turned up as a gift for the cause a few weeks ago, all different,among them was a Cowlicks. I have never grown one so kept it for myself.

Thanks for the info.

XX Jeannine

[Daylilyfanatic4]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Camo, maybe you and daylily can get together via PM and he can tell you who he got the seeds from, who got them from you, and maybe find out which seeds you sent to that person.

I keep a notebook with the names/addresses of all the varieties I send to a person, aside from my SSE listings and SASE free seed offers at Tville, but I don't know if you or others keep such a notebook.

I already sent camo a PM he said he was not sure what seeds they were. The person I got them from emailed me and told me that they are not cowlicks but are either suddeth's strain or "regular pink brandywine"

I guess I probably never know. I hope it is a high yielding tomato.

[camochef]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Camo, maybe you and daylily can get together via PM and he can tell you who he got the seeds from, who got them from you, and maybe find out which seeds you sent to that person.

I keep a notebook with the names/addresses of all the varieties I send to a person, aside from my SSE listings and SASE free seed offers at Tville, but I don't know if you or others keep such a notebook.

Carolyn,
I had received a PM from Daylily before posting any of this and I checked my computer to see what I could have sent and while I had the person's address listed I didn't have any listing of sending anything. This could have happened during a time when I was sending lots of seeds out and forgot to fill in the information but that is unlikely as I usually keep on top of such things. I do admit that as the years go by...I'm not as sharp as I used to be, and we all make mistakes, but I'm pretty particular in handling and sending out seeds.
I had explained to him that most Pink Brandywines taste a lot alike, with only subtle differences. The major differences in them come more in production and disease resistance. Likewise, I suggested he simply enjoy eating them. After all, that's why I grow them.
I think too many people worry about growing every variety out there or crossing one with another instead of finding out what performs best for them in their gardens and enjoying them. I'm hoping someday just to be able to grow the three or four favorites I have and not worry about what others could be better. Think it will ever happen.


I have all mine planted out for this year and am looking forward to some early tomatoes if these rains ever stop and the sun comes out. I saw many blossoms on quite a few plants this morning before the rains started again.
Hope you do better this year than the last few.
Camo