Anyone Growing McGee or Buckbee's New 50 Day?

[mdvpc]

I am growing these for the first time, and wonder if anyone has any experience with them. So far, nice plants, both have buds. Growing in 15 gallon containers.

[creister]

I have not grown either, but McGee looks interesting, I was thinking of trying it as a fall tomato. Is it not supposed to be an early variety?

[Raymondo]

I copied something written by nctomatoman (Craig L.) some time back which is a kind of lament for tomato varieties that he considers excellent but attract very little attention. Buckbee's New 50 Day is one of them.

[mdvpc]

Buckbee's New Fifty Day
A pre-1930 variety introduced by H.W. Buckbee, Rockford, Illinois. Their 1930 catalog states, "The largest fruited, the smoothest, the finest in quality of all early scarlet tomatoes." Not as early as 50 days, but this is indeed a good producer that has an old-fashioned tomato taste, is red and medium-sized.

Mcgee is supposed to be early:

McGee
55 days, indeterminate — A really early variety. The fruits are one to three ounces, red, smooth-skinned, and globe-shaped. They are mild, slightly tart with a good lingering aftertaste. Grown out from USDA ARS accession number PI 644964.

[cottonpicker]

Craig......what's YOUR opinion of Buckbee's New 50 Day???? Wanting to hear comments re: productivity, taste, plant habit, fruit blemishes-catfacing, misshapen? (if any )...not so much DTM.
Thankxxx....

[Linda10]

I grew McGee last Fall along with 30 other varieties selected for earliness or cold tolerance.

Flavor wasn't bad, about the same as Glacier so I'll use Glacier for comparison.

McGee wasn't a very good producer; only had about 1/3 of the fruit production of Glacier.

McGee ripened 3 full weeks AFTER Glacier, but stopped production BEFORE Glacier.

So all things considered, McGee was not in my top 10 list for Fall planting. It could be better in the Spring, but I would rather just trial my top 10 Fall tomatoes for early spring.

[Glenn 50]

Grew Buckbees New 50 day 3 years ago. Seed via Craig. It was a good cropping relatively disease free tomato. Found compared to the later big uns it wasn't that big but it was a good solid fruit.
Liked it so much I crossed it with Verna Orange. (They were the only ones in flower at the time) Offspring was red and great but never carried it on......so many to chose from.

[mdvpc]

Glenn-thanks for the information. Glad to hear you liked it. I will post on it when I get some ripe fruit.

[mdvpc]

Here is a photo of my Buckbee's yesterday, May 8. Its flowered, has not set fruit yet. Its very compact so far.

[barkeater]

Buckbees New 50 day now starts off my 2009 must grow list!

[mdvpc]

Bark-Stay tuned and I will update.

mdvpc,

How did McGee and Buckbee's Fifty Day turn out for you? Did you ever grow either again? Where did you get your initial seeds?

Linda10,

What was your seed source for McGee and Glacier?

In 2016, I grew McGee (from Victory Seeds, purchased 17 Jul 2015) and Glacier (from Baker Creek, purchased 28 Jul 2015). I grew them in the ground (not containers). I only had one McGee plant; I had it in some tough soil, though. I grew a bunch of Glacier plants (some in the tough soil and some elsewhere). Both tomatoes eventually produced, but neither were anything like early or productive for me in 2016 (I think this is because of acclimatization issues or something). Determinates like Glacier often seem to struggle in our soil (probably because people often grow them in containers with much different soil, and they may get used to that). Most of the tomatoes I planted near McGee struggled (so, I think because of the tough soil, it wasn't a fair trial for it).

Anyway, for me, McGee was the size of a large cherry tomato (maybe a little bigger). Glacier's fruit was significantly larger (bigger than a golf ball). They tasted completely different to me. McGee was actually acidic (in a garden where almost nothing was acidic—the lack of acidity was probably due to higher potassium levels than average), and McGee was one of my favorite tomatoes for flavor out of about 100 varieties (well, I guess I probably only got to taste about 70-something varieties in 2016, but if you include previous years, too, it might add up past that). Glacier tasted like a regular tomato (maybe a touch of sweetness), but the remarkable thing about it was that the smell in my mouth as I ate it smelled like a blackberry (which was pretty awesome). I hadn't experienced that before in any other tomato (although Mountain Princess had a different kind of sweet smell and/or taste that reminds me a bit of it, I think, though more like a mild, sweet perfume or cherry than a blackberry). I'm not 100% sure that Glacier was true to type, but it may have just been the growing conditions that made the differences noted.

I'm planning to grow McGee again next year from my saved seeds to see if it does better after more acclimatization. I'm less likely to grow Glacier from saved seeds, but I might. Victory Seeds is based out of western Oregon (and although I'm close to Eastern Oregon, the climate is much different than western Oregon's—it's more desert-like and semi-arid with sage brush, Russian olives and stuff in my area, rather than like a coastal climate). Our soil (in our garden—not the whole area) is gray clay that has been amended over the years.

I'm planning to grow Buckbee's Fifty Day, along with McGee, in 2017, too.

As for what was both productive and early for me in 2016—Matina. It did very well, and was quite tasty (tangy, but not acidic). I preferred the flavor of McGee, but I did like Matina's flavor a lot. The only tomatoes I've had that I like as much as McGee for flavor are Green Giant, Early Girl F1 (when still somewhat orange), and Pruden's Purple (on a hamburger)—so far. Well, there are occasional tomatoes on some plants that taste as awesome (e.g. Cherokee Green Pear, and Gardener's Delight—but they haven't often been like that for me), and I liked my Husky Cherry Red F2s from a certain plant in 2015 a lot (the F3s were still pretty good, but they tasted like a different kind of tomato than the F2s; I liked the F3s about as much as Matina, which is to say, still a lot).

Someone in Kentucky (in a Victory Seeds review) had a very good experience with McGee (it produced all season). It sounds like they might enjoy humidity (Kentucky can get pretty humid). It used to be popular in Texas, and the southern states, I've read.

[greenthumbomaha]

Reviving this thread as i have had Buckbee's in my "to-try section" for a few years. Please post any information, especially plant height. Tatiana has a comment on its being 6 feet, not the short plant described here. Many intended to try it ...

- Lisa