Did I find Teddy Jones?

[eyolf]

Back about 25 years ago, I spent way too much time on Gardenweb...especially the Tomato forum. There I learned that Big Boy and Better Boy, two early hybrids, shared a parent.

I grew each one, saved seeds and planted 40 of each the next year. Always looking for pink, I grew between 40-80 of the best ones every year until about 2004, when I hadn't found anything that resembled Carolyn's vague description. Taking midsummer blossoms of the best candidate of each, I ripped the stamens from about 5 pink Big Boy F8 segregate blossoms and got them friendly with the pollen from a few pink Better Boy F8's.

I got about 3 ripe fruits... two attacked by critters, but Did get enough seeds to keep on. In 2012, I got involved with a local political initiative, the kids were demanding more of my time, and THEN nearly lost my leg in a logging accident. I had to park the breeding experiments.

I wear a leg brace, but get around pretty OK...thanks to a wonderful surgeon.


I had separated out a nice pink globe ( a good home canner) and was working towards a big pink beefsteak.

F8 (for the second time) was grown out this year, from old seeds. Germination was poor (and one envelope labeled "pink globe" is obviously not...good thing I sowed some from both)

Is this as close as one can come to Teddy Jones?

I doubt it: TJ was supposedly a badly behaved rampant indet with little disease resistance; mine are happy in a 5' reinforcing wire cage and have yet to lose any leaves.

But I'm not going any further. Mama and I canned 28 quarts of Tomatoes today. I'm just gonna grow these as they are now.

As a working name, I called one Ted Steak and Ted Globe. One more year to make sure they're true, and I will share.

But what should I call them?

Suggestions?

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[nctomatoman]

Interesting! My impression, from my few discussions with Carolyn about it, was that Teddy Jones was similar to the German Johnson type tomatoes - regular leaf, large, pink, oblate, irregular.

What you show looks pretty good!

I am not sure the parent that the two Boys shared was the big one - since Burpee probably started working toward Big Boy in the 1940s, and Peto was working on Better Boy in the 1970. If they indeed did share a parent, I would have guessed it is the red one.

[clkeiper]

giant ted?
Awesome ted?


It looks awesome. how does it taste? does it have decent disease resistance? is it meaty or juicy? since it is pink I assume sweeter than a red but is it?

[ddsack]

Teddy Boy?
Tremendous Teddy?


Actually Ted Steak and Ted Globe sound fine as is!

[eyolf]

The big steak got a little beat up getting it out of the concrete-reinforcement cage and had to be eaten right away. I scooped out some seeds and added them to the innards of another, rodent-ravaged fruit and they are happily fermenting in the garage now.

Without the gel/seed component, I find the flavor of most tomatoes rather bland, and this one was no exception. But I only extracted seeds from the areas near the damage and I think the flavor is balanced and "tomatoey" on the whole. This was the first truly vine-ripened edible fruit; we pass on the ones that get attacked and begin to decay. There are even larger ones coming.

If I have enough seed I will offer it with the caveat that I would REALLY like to wait until fall 2021 to be certain: I'm thinking about the smaller globe: was one packet mislabelled...or crossed?

It has been since 2012: I cannot remember

That one is entirely about a pink canner, like a pink Wisconsin 55. Uniform ripening, no hard white rings or cores, thin skin, easy to peel, and that perfect 7-10 oz size.

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[clkeiper]

well, if you share seeds I wold be willing to try it here to see how it grows in my climate...

[PNW_D]

I recall Carolyn said the other parent was in her book ........ and a commercial variety from the 30's if memory serves

anyhoo, I kept looking at Break O' Day (BOY??) I did run this by Carolyn, but seems I was wrong

but what a beauty of a tomato Ted Steak is!!

[nctomatoman]

Not Break O Day. Not Marglobe. But the next major OP commercial type!

[Master Shake]

Ted Bundy and Al Bundy

[Fusion_power]

Carolyn got information from Otto Schifriss (Burpee breeder of Big Boy) regarding Teddy Jones and shared that Burpee bought rights to Teddy Jones from a person of that name who used the money to purchase a small greenhouse. Teddy Jones provided good flavor while the other parent was selected for VF resistance. Carolyn tried to dehybridize Big Boy to pull out as much of the Teddy Jones genetics as possible. Here is a quote from a post she made Sept 10, 2001.

Up until about 1950 hybrids were made with a simple one on one cross such that we know that Big Boy, for instance, has only two parents, a large Pink heirloom from the midwest called Teddy Jones and another parent.

Same for Better Boy. Just two parents.

but modern hybrids are not made that way. Modern hybrids are made from what are called breeding lines.

lets take breeding line A and start with plant A. Lets say tolerance for X is crossed into it, then tolerance for Y is crossed into that from a different parent, then a gene for high solids is crossed into that for a third parent and then a gene for uniform ripening is crossed into that for a fourth parent. That's just the A line.

same is done with the B breeding line.

Then comes the magic day when pollen from the last plant in the A line is placed on the stigma of a blossom of the B line and thus our F1 hybrid seed is made. That is harvested, packaged and sold.

And this hybrid has many parents, as I've said, not just two.

I've been dehybridizing Big Boy to get out Teddy Joens and I can do that becasue Big Boy has just two parents. And I can expect to get maybe 80-90 % of Teddy Jones out but never 100%.

Tomatoes have 12 chromosomes in the haploid state and 24 in the diploid state.

Ray, you mentioned that companies sell hybrid OP seed and F1 seed. No. Hybrid is the opposite of OP in the following way.

If seeds are saved from an open pollinated variety those seeds sown again give rise to the same exact variety unless there has been a spontaneous mutation or accidental cross pollination. but the genes are stable and fixed in OP varieties.

If you save seed from an F1 hybrid, now called the F2 seed and plant out that seed you'll get a variety of plant types and fruit shapes and colors depending on what the original parents were. The chance of getting out any one parent of the many that went into the formation of that F1 hybrid is almost zero. But I don't know why anyone would want to dehybridize a known F1 hybrid anyway, except in the instance I mentioned where the older hybrids have just two parents. And in the case of Big Boy I want Teddy Jones. LOL

I've dehybridized several F1 hybrids that arose from chance X pollination of two OP varieties. It's great fun but you have to have lots of room to plant lot of offspring and it can take from 3 - 10 years to dehybridize such an F1 hybrid to an OP form depending on the particular traits that are selected for.

Carolyn

[eyolf]

Thank you, Darrel. I thought I read everything that anyone ever said about Teddy Jones, but I did not remember that particular post.

It doesn't really contradict anything else that has been said, though, so I'm happy.

I don't think I have the original TJ; Carolyn described a chance meeting with someone that was familiar with it (keeping breeding stock alive) as saying it was a huge, rampant plant with little or no disease resistance. This is growing fairly near two Azoychka plants and is no more rampant, and seems healthier than the yellow Russian.

But it's pink, and a big slicer. I have one plant of Burpee's "Big Pink Hybrid" and in my opinion "Teddy Steak" has been a day or two earlier and more productive. Flavor is about the same.

But mostly, I made the effort to have something unique.

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