Earl's Faux, Yes..?

[Vince]

Casey's Heirloom tomato site is awesome. This was stolen from there and is in no way directed toward they are spreading false info. Solid web site, Cheers.

Read the below description please...
Earl’s Faux
Midseason!! ! Potato Leaf
A very dedicated tomato grower in Ohio, Earl
Candenhead, was expecting Red Brandywine, a regular
leaf variety, in a seed trade. He grew out those seeds
and was surprised to find a pink fruited potato leaf variety
instead. Earl grew it out again the following year and it
produced the same pink fruit and leaf type so his seeds
were not the result of some sort of unknown cross.
Heirloom growers absolutely gush over this variety as
they say that it is one of the finest examples of “well-balanced” flavour in a tomato.

Question How can a (STABLE) pink potato leaf variety arise from a rl Red Brandy wine within one generation? Answer..JMHO this is impossible. Earl's Faux, which I have grown several times and is delicious(smaller than BWS), must be another variety that has been misnamed. Unless, god, the moons of saturn, and Uranus were all alighned at once to create this new OP variety in one generation....? Or maybe it is a gift from god...Any one have an opinion of which tomato EF may actually be? Or is it really possible to have a stable mutation(with different (leaf, skin color, flavor) arise in one generation?

[dice]

It may have been a cross that someone got in a trade
or SSE order for Red Brandywine a decade ago, and
they just kept growing it, ignoring the variations and saving
seeds each year from "the best plant" (in their estimation),
without ever changing the name of it.

By the time they sent some to Earl, it was stable, even though
it was not Red Brandywine anymore.

Or they may just have mixed up their packets and sent seeds
for some other obscure tomato that they got at a farmer's fruit
stand, etc.

I don't think the description meant that it went from true Red
Brandywine to stable Earl's Faux in one season, just that the
seeds Earl got instead happened to be an already stabilized
cultivar (whatever it actually was).

[tessa]

maybe earl can come and shed some light?

i'm growing earl's faux for the first time this year. i got a RL from the only seed i planted. so i am calling that faux earl's at the moment...and time will tell what sort of fruit it sets.
it's a great setter so far! but no idea yet as to final size and colour.

[carolyn137]

Earl tried interacting with the woman who sent him the seeds to find out more for certainly the seeds she sent were not RB.

He'll never know the exact ultimate source of her seeds but the seed she sent was a pink PL that were stable.

[travis]

Too many possibilities exist, Vince, to narrow it down to a single probability.

Could be a stray seed as is very common with traded or gifted seeds from amatuer gardeners. Could be a Brandywine Sudduth seed in a batch of Red Brandywine seeds, in other words. Could be a stray Marianna's Peace seed.

As far as mutations, it doesn't have to be a double mutation from Red Brandwine (Landis) since Tomato Growers Supply sells two potato leaf Red Brandywines. It could simply be a single mutation from red to pink of one of those two varieties.

As far as "stable" goes, it could've been an F3 or F4 from a Red Brandywine Landis x an unknown pink fruited potato leaf variety. The F1 would've been regular leaf and red. The F2s would've been 25% potato leaf with some being red and some being pink. Once the potato leaf gene was captured and the pink fruited PL seed replanted as a F3, the chances of future generation plants appearing stable is high.

There are many other possibilities. Those are just a few that would've been accidental. Personally, I found Earl's Faux to be nearly identical to Brandywine in all regards. I think maybe the size and depth of the blossom scar was the only difference I found.

[carolyn137]

As far as mutations, it doesn't have to be a double mutation from Red Brandwine (Landis) since Tomato Growers Supply sells two potato leaf Red Brandywines. It could simply be a single mutation from red to pink of one of those two varieties.

*****

Earl's Faux appeared before Linda got the RB from the Landis Museum as far as I can remember.

TGS sells three RB's, well actually one.

The Landis one, which is not a strain as indicated, is the only true one.

The other two, one PL and one RL, not two PL's as you worte above, are NOT RB, neither one of them. She continues to list them b'c so many folks like them.

I've asked her to just say they aren't RB, as she knows, either the PL or the RL one, but so far my pleading is not working.

All the conjecture in the world is not going to help b'c the information needed rests with the woman who sent Earl the seeds and that avenue of exploration is over with.

[travis]

The fact that the other PL Red Brandywine is not a Red Brandywine does not negate the possibility that someone growing it may have experienced a mutation to pink fruit with PL foliage as I pointed out, and then passed that seed on unknowingly as Red Brandywine. That was the point, not whether the name was correct or not.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by travis

The fact that the other PL Red Brandywine is not a Red Brandywine does not negate the possibility that someone growing it may have experienced a mutation to pink fruit with PL foliage as I pointed out, and then passed that seed on unknowingly as Red Brandywine. That was the point, not whether the name was correct or not.

Yes Travis, there are all sorts of possibilities. And as I said above, the only person who could clarify the issue is the woman who sent Earl the seeds and that's not forthcoming.

In all my years of growing tomatoes, now well over about 2000 varieties I've only had two that have had an epidermis mutation and those are Cuostralee and Great Divide, both originally red which went from a yellow to a clear epidermis and thus were pink. I didn't distribute seeds for either of them b'c I feel so strongly about folks not distributing seeds for anything other than the original variety.

Of course we have Amana Pink and Yellow Riesentraube and a few more so others don't feel so constrained.

And I've had just two somatic mutations occur in all those years. Green Gage had one branch with red not yellow fruits and Dix Doight d' Naples had one branch with fruits that were a different shape, but still red.

My point? At least in my experience epidermis mutations and somatic mutations are not at all common. But, there's always that chance.

[travis]

You're right. It's probably just a stray seed or an incorrectly identified seed of a known pink, potato leaf variety like Brandywine.

[Vince]

"It may have been a cross that someone got in a trade
or SSE order for Red Brandywine a decade ago, and
they just kept growing it, ignoring the variations and saving
seeds each year from "the best plant" (in their estimation),
without ever changing the name of it.

By the time they sent some to Earl, it was stable, even though
it was not Red Brandywine anymore."

Dice, I didn't consider this scenario and this could make sense. As carolyn, said we will never know unless Earl's seed source would comment about were the seeds came from and how long she grew them for. Maybe if Earl sees this thread he will comment.