Isolating Brandywines?

[Joe Williamson]

I am getting back into gardening after a long hiatus, and I was never an expert at it in the first place.

I have three varieties of tomatoes down in a small garden. I read in William Woys Weaver's book on heirloom vegetables that Brandywines should be isolated from other varieties by at least 50 feet, in other that they "breed true."

They are not that far, not even close. I am wondering if I can expect whatever I find on the Brandywine plants to be crosses with the other varieties in the garden. I have Rutgers and some cherry tomatoes. The cherries look as if they'll set flowers and produce first.

Does anybody know what will happen in this situation?

[Bill Litchfield]

I grow Brandywine tomatoes mixed in among 12 other varieties in my garden and all grow and produce just fine.

Regards, Bill

>

[Ray Drouillard]

This year, nothing will happen. That is, you won't notice anything. All of the tomatoes will set fruit normally.

Next year, if you decide to save seeds and plant them, you'll get some Brandywines, and you will get some Brandywine mixes. If you can reliably tell the difference between the pure Brandywine vines and the mixes, just save seed from the pure vines. Next year, you will have some pure vines and some mixes.

On the other hand, if you have a small garden, saving seeds won't save you much money. It will be nice as a hobby, and you can actually develop your own sub-variety that is perfectly suited to the conditions of your garden, but you won't save more than a buck or two.

Ray

[Penelope Periwinkle]

That's only if you're collecting seed for next year. You can still be reasonably sure of collecting pure seed by covering a set of flowers before they start blooming with a fine mesh, like panty hose, until the fruit has set. Then be sure to harvest those tomatoes for seed.

Most tomatoes are self pollinating, anyway, but just to be absolutely sure...

Penelope

[nutNhoney]

Oh good! Joe's post had me worried. My Brandywines are mixed in with 4 other varieties.

[FarmerDill]

That is true of any plant where you wish to save seed. But only the plants from that seed will affected. If you wish to save seed from any open pollinated tomato and wish to be sure that the next generation will be true then isolation is desirable, Tomatoes are self fertile so many seed savers with small gardens just bag the flowers to keep alien pollen from getting in. A bit of labor but it works fine.

[DaveH]

My tomatoes are not isolated in our garden. I save seeds from hierlooms and they almost always come true the next year. DaveH

[kenny]

Brandywine is a potato-leaved L.pimpinellifolium. will cross with other types of tomatoes with protruding styles. Other protruding style types are L.lycopersicum a currant type and L.lycopersicum beefstake type. Most modern varieties will not cross with one onother due to their retracted styles. Seed savers should therefore have no problem with cross polination when growing one currant or one potato-leaved variety and any number of varieties with styles that are covered by their anther tubes. THis comes from page 156 of Suzanne Ashworths book Seed To Seed.

I have been growing brandywine for years and have not had any problems with it crossing so far [knock on wood]

[kenny]

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 13:44:28 -0500, kenny wrote: Sorry bad reading from the book at the time I wrote this I am al wrong, Brandywine is L.Lycopersicum and the other type is the currant type L.Pimpinellifolium. THe book said double flowered beefstake will also out breed with there two. I got the book this year and it has been a real eye opener for seed saving to me.