Heirloom Tomato Stories – part 1: Brandywine and company – what we know, and what we don’t (one person’s opinion)
Brandywine is a large fruited (most fruit in the one pound range), potato leaf, pink heirloom tomato that has taken on legendary status due to its potentially superb flavor. However, because many individuals have become involved with growing the variety, saving seed and sharing it with others, it seems as though numerous “selections” and/or sub-strains are now “out there” (some of which are inferior in flavor or performance), with no easy way of knowing which strain you have.
To
further complicate matters, there are a number of cultivars
with “Brandywine” as part of their name – and some of these are showing
variability, due to inadvertent crossing or selecting.
The
following tomatoes all carry the name “Brandywine”:
Brandywine – indeterminate, pink
fruited, large fruit, oblate shape, some green shoulders, some ribbed
shoulders, some cracking, yield can range from how to relatively high, potato
leaf, meaty, flavor from insipid to superb.
History: This is fairly certain: Brandywine is a tomato that found its way
into the Seed Savers Exchange collection in 1982. It got there via an elderly (now deceased) Ohio gardener named
Ben Quisenberry, who received the variety from a
woman named Dorris Sudduth
Hill – she stated that they had been in her family for over 80 years. I do not know where the Dorris
came from – hence, where the tomato originated.
The key question is whether Brandywine was a family heirloom that arose from a commercial variety via selection, or was brought from overseas. The first tomato of a similar description to appear in seed catalogs is Turner’s Hybrid (Burpee) or Mikado (Henderson); it is not clear as to whether these are the same tomato with one company renaming it, or two tomatoes that are very similar. Johnson and Stokes also introduced a variety called Brandywine (I think, in 1890), but it is described in an old Burpee catalog (1882) as a red tomato that is “inferior to Matchless” (a red, medium large sized Burpee variety). I would love to see the pages from the three catalogs when Turner’s Hybrid, Mikado and Brandywine were introduced to read the exact descriptions. (note: I need to do more research on the above and verify dates, since they do not make sense).
(Note that Carolyn and I obtained from
the USDA seed collection several tomatoes with the name “Mikado”
included: Mikado
(2 different accessions), Mikado Ecarlate,
and Mikado Scarlet.
The latter two seed samples, in limited grow-outs, yielded
indeterminate, regular leaf plants with large red (scarlet) beefsteak type
fruit of find flavor. Mikado, over several years of growing seeds from each
accession, gave a mixture – regular leaf, large fruited red; potato leaf, large
fruited red; regular leaf, medium sized pink, and potato leaf, medium sized
pink. This indicates that the seed stock
is not pure. No outcome resembled
Brandywine in fruit size or flavor, however.)
Once
word of the supreme flavor of Brandywine got around, it became the most popular
of the heirloom tomatoes offered via the SSE yearbook, and even found its way
into a number of mainstream seed catalogs, such as Stokes and Parks. What is clear is that at least one selection,
sold by the defunct Tomato Seed Company of Metuchen,
New Jersey, has consistently inferior flavor.
The strain carried by Johnny’s Selected Seeds came from a seed donation
by me – I received the variety from Roger Wentling of
Pennsylvania in 1986. He in turn
received the variety from Ken Ettlinger of the Long
Island Seed and Plant company. Ken
received it from Ben Quisenberry, thus the JSS strain
is the Quisenberry/Sudduth
strain. There is an inaccurate relist of the variety in the SSE yearbook – because I got
the strain from “PA WE R”, one seed saver relisted it
is Pawer’s Brandywine, thus illustrating how names
can be improperly perpetuated.
Substrains, selections, and erroneous names:
Pawer’s (an
error – appeared in 1994)
Sudduth’s (first
listing 1996)
Quisenberry’s (only
one listing, 1999)
Radiator Charlie’s (listed in one SSE yearbook,
1995, most likely an error)
Probably crosses,
selections, etc:
Brandywine Sport (first listed 1990, then
again in 1997)
Brandywine Mutate (one listing, 1997)
Brandywine Cherry (first showed up in 1998)
Purple Brandywine (first listed under this
name in 1998, but is in reality a stabilized variety created by Joe Bratka by crossing Brandywine with Marizol
Purple – it is also known as Purple Brandy, Marizol
Brandywine and Marizol Bratka)
************************************************************************
Yellow Brandywine – indeterminate, golden
fruited, large fruit, oblate shape, some green shoulders, some ribbed
shoulders, some cracking, yield can range from low to high, potato leaf, meaty,
flavor intense and on the tart side
History: I received seeds of Yellow Brandywine from
Barbara Lund of Ohio in 1991. Barbara
claims she received the variety from Charles Knoy of
Indiana. I sent this variety to Rob
Johnston, and that is the strain carried by Johnny’s Selected Seed.
In
looking at the seed catalog literature, the only tomato listed which matches
closely the description of Yellow Brandywine is an old Henderson variety listed
in 1890 called Shah – described as a gold fruited sport from Mikado. (William Woys Weaver, in his book, draws the inaccurate conclusion
that Shah is a medium sized cream or white tomato).
Substrains and selections:
Red Brandywine – indeterminate, red
fruited, medium to medium large fruit, slightly oblate shape, uniform ripening,
some slight ribbing, fairly crack tolerant, regular leaf, juicy, consistently
high yields, well balanced fine flavor.
History: Red Brandywine first appeared in the 1984 yearbook,
but was a mis-listing of the pink potato leaf variety
from Ben Quisenberry (“Brandywine” itself). There was, and continues to be, different usages of color when referring to tomatoes – for example,
some seed savers list pink tomatoes as red, others list pink tomatoes as
purple. ALL listings in the
Tomatoes: Red category of the SSE
yearbooks prior to 1988 (whether listed as Brandywine or Red Brandywine) were
of the pink potato leaf variety.
The first listing of the
red, regular leaf, authentic strain of Red Brandywine was in 1988 – listed by Steve Miller,
who got the variety from Tom Hauch of Heirloom
Seeds. (In his seed catalog, Tom states
that this tomato originated with Chester County, Pennsylvania farmers in
1885). From my review of all of the SSE
yearbooks, it is clear that many listings under Red Brandywine were, and still
are, a mis-listing of Brandywine (the pink potato
leaf tomato). Though there are often 20
or more listings of Red Brandywine in some yearbooks, no more than 12 listings
are the regular leaf, red, authentic variety -–the rest are misplaced listings
of Brandywine (the pink potato leaf one).
To make matters worse, improper seed saving has led to the recent
appearance of a red, potato leaf variety that is probably a selection from a
cross or a mislabeling of some other variety.
Thus the Brandywine story continues to become more convoluted all of the
time.
Substrains, stabilized crosses and selections listed in the “Red Tomato” section of the SSE Yearbooks:
Brandywine, Plum-shaped (first listed 1988)
Brandywine, Heart-shaped (first listed 1990)
Brandywine Mutate #1 (listed 1997)
Brandywine Mutate #2 (listed 1997)
OTV Brandywine (first listed 1997,
stabilized from Carolyn Male from a cross of Yellow Brandywine that appeared in
my garden – it is a potato leaf, large fruited orange red tomato of excellent
flavor).
Black Brandywine – indeterminate, dusky
rose/purplish fruited, variable shape, from small to medium to large, oblate
shape, some ribbed shoulders, some cracking, both potato and regular leaf,
indicating an unstable strain, variable yields, variable flavor. Some people have had great success with it,
others, such as me, got nothing more than a small, ugly, poorly flavored “bag
of tomato seeds and gel” from my one experience with it (growing out one plant
of potato leaf, one plant of regular leaf, neither one being very good).
1975-1981: No Listings of Brandywine
1982: Brandywine (3 listings)
1983: Brandywine (10 listings)
1984: Red Brandywine (1 listing, WI HO S, potato
leaf pink)
Brandywine (14 listings)
1985:
Red
Section: Red Brandywine (1 listing, FL ST G, WI HO S 84, potato leaf pink)
Pink
Section: Brandywine (22 listings)
1986:
Listed
in the Red section: Brandywine, Red (1 listing – FL ST G,
from WI HO S 84) – possible incorrectly listed – as potato leaf, large fruit
Listed
in the Pink to Purple section: Brandywine (23 listings) – earliest
listing OH QU B (Ben Quisenberry) 1980 – all listed
as pink potato leaf, large fruit – but Quisenberry
strain quoted as being best flavored.
No
listings for Yellow or any other Brandywines.
1987:
Listed
in Red section: Brandywine – 1 listing, no description (MD MA B)
Listed
in Pink to Purple section: Brandywine (29 listings) – all pink
potato leaf
Amish Brandywine (1 listing) – MO BR E, who
got from George Pesta, WV 1985, large pink potato
leaf
No
other colors listed
1988:
Listed
in Red section: Brandywine, Red (2 listings, AR KI F – 10-12 oz red, but grown out
as a potato leaf in 1989; OK ST F from FL ST G – potato leaf)
Plum Shaped Brandywine – CA BR D, plum mutation
Listed
in the Pink to Purple section: Brandywine (36 listings)
Amish Brandywine (1 listing)
No
other colors listed
1989:
Listed
in the Red section: Brandywine (3 listings, all potato leaf)
Brandywine, Red (2 listings, both potato
leaf)
Listed
in the Pink to Purple section: Brandywine (34 listings)
Amish Brandywine (1 listing)
No
other colors listed
1990:
Listed
in the Red section: Brandywine (3 listings, one of which as wed and small, CA BR D, as
a form of Brandywine)
Brandywine, Heart shaped (1 listing, CA BR D, from
NY RI R, as a mutation)
Brandywine, Red (2 listings, including first
reference to Heirloom Seeds source (Tom Haush), PA MI
S of Landis Valley, described as an excellent, best
tasting tomato that originated in Chester County – the other
described as potato leaf)
Listed
in the Pink to purple section: Brandywine (29 listings)
Brandywine Sport (1 listing, WI BA L, small
egg shaped pink, from a NGA member)
No
other colors listed.
1991:
Red
section: Brandywine (3 listings, all potato leaf)
Heart Shaped Brandywine (1 listing, MO WA C, reg, leaf, solid, like a paste tomato, from CA BR D)
Brandywine, Red (5 listings, OH KN C from
PA MI S – only 2 the red variety, rest are potato leaf)
Pink
to purple section: Brandywine (26 listings)
Brandywine, Pink (1 listing, by PA MI S,
from CA ES C 86)
Brandywine Sport (1 listing)
Yellow
to Orange section: Yellow Brandywine (1 listing, OH LU B, potato leaf beefsteak type,
from Knoy, Indiana, 1985).
1992:
Red
section: Brandywine (2 listings, both potato leaf)
Brandywine, Red (8 listings, at least 4
potato leaf pinks, starts to get confusing)
Brandywine, Heart-shaped (1 listing)
Pink
section: Brandywine (33 listings; Miller’s Pink BW listing moved into this
section)
Yellow
section: Yellow Brandywine (1 listing, PA LE C, from OH LU B)
1993:
Red section: Brandywine (6 listings, 4 potato leaf, 2 without detail)
Brandywine, Red (7 listings, 3 potato leaf,
4 without detail but 3 probably regular leaf red)
Brandywine, Heart-shaped (1 listing)
Pink
section: Brandywine (35 listings)
Yellow
section: Yellow Brandywine (6 listings)
1994:
Red
section: Brandywine (5 listings, 3 potato leaf, 2 without detail)
Brandywine, Red (7 listings, 3 potato leaf,
3 probably the regular leaf red)
Brandywine, Heart-shaped (1 listing)
Pink
section: Brandywine (34 listings)
Brandywine, Pawer’s (1 listing, MO WA C, incorrect, since it is from me, who got from PA
WE R – he took the listing code for the name)
Yellow
section: Yellow Brandywine (11 listings)
1995:
Red
section: Brandywine (5 listings, 2 described as potato leaf, one as an old
fashioned tasting red)
Brandywine, Red (10 listings, 3 potato
leaf, 4 probably the red regular leaf version, 3 not described)
Brandywine, Heart-shaped (1 listing)
Pink
section: Brandywine (41 listings)
Brandywine, Pawer’s (1 listing)
Brandywine, Radiator
Charlie’s
(1 listing, listed as aka Brandywine, Amish, from MO
BR E who got from George Pesta, who got from Totally
tomatoes – obviously erroneous).
Brandywine, Joyce’s Strain (1 listing, a selection for
earliness by Chuck Wyatt)
Yellow
section: Yellow Brandywine (15 listings)
1996:
Red
Section: Brandywine (2 listings, one
as red, one no detail)
Brandywine, Red (17 listings, 8 potato leaf
pink, 8 regular leaf red)
Brandywine, Heart-shaped (3 listings)
Pink
section:
Brandywine (48 listings, all pink potato leaf)
Brandywine, Pawer’s (1 listing)
Brandywine, Joyce’s Strain (2 listings)
Brandywine, Sudduth’s (1 listing, Heritage Farm listing, Tomato #2, orig.
from TN TE J)
Yellow
section: Yellow Brandywine (14 listings)
Yellow Brandywine, Platfoot (1 listing, Carolyn Male, who got from Gary Platfoot, Ohio, as a more uniformly shaped strain)
1997:
Red
section: Brandywine with no modifier is no longer listed.
Brandywine, Red (25 listings, 8 described
as potato leaf pink, most of rest are the red regular leaf)
Brandywine Mutate #1 (1 listing, MO WA C from CA
BR D)
Brandywine Mutate #2 (1 listing, MO WA C from CA
BR D)
Brandywine, Heart-shaped (4 listings)
Brandywine, OTV (1 listing, Carolyn Male,
stabilized and named by Carolyn from a cross between Yellow Brandywine and ???
in Craig’s garden; seed sent to Craig by a seed saver)
Pink
section: Brandywine (50 listings)
Brandywine Mutate (1 listing, MO BR E from CA BR D)
Brandywine, Joyce’s Strain (5 listings)
Brandywine, Pawer’s (3 listings)
Brandywine Sport (1 listing, Heritage Farm
listing)
Brandywine, Sudduth’s (2 listings)
Yellow
section: Yellow Brandywine (20 listings)
Yellow Brandywine, Platfoot (3 listings)
1998:
Red
section: Brandywine, Heart-shaped (3 listings)
Brandywine, OTV (11 listings)
Brandywine, Red (21 listings, 6 pink potato
leaf, most of the rest red regular leaf)
Brandywine, Joyce’s strain (7 listings)
Brandywine, Pawer’s (3 listings)
Brandywine, Sudduth’s (3 listings, one misspelled as Suddeth’s)
Brandywine, Purple (2 listings)
Brandywine Sport (1 listing)
Brandywine Cherry (1 listing, MO DI T, pink delicious cherry)
Yellow Brandywine, Platfoot (6 listings)
1999:
Brandywine, OTV (15 listings)
Brandywine, Red (23 listings)
Pink
section: Brandywine (49 listings)
Brandywine Sport (1 listing)
Brandywine Cherry (4 listings)
Brandywine, Glick’s Strain (3 listings, original introducer Darrell Merrill,
who got from William W Weaver, claims it is the original Brandywine, via Glick in Gap, orig. from Johnson and Stokes company)
Brandywine, Joyce’s Strain (7 listings)
Brandywine, Pawer’s (4 listings)
Brandywine, Purple (2 listings)
Brandywine, Quisenberry (1 listing, from Darrell Merrill, TO 7 from the SSE
collection)
Brandywine, Sudduth’s (5 listings)
Yellow
section: Yellow Brandywine (19 listings)
Yellow Brandywine, Platfoot (7 listings)
Other colors section: Black Brandywine (5 listings, came from TGSC)
2000:
Red Section: Brandywine (1 listing, pink potato leaf)
Brandywine, Heart-Shaped (4 listings)
Brandywine, OTV (13 listings)
Brandywine, Red (22 listings – 12 of which are red regular leaf, rest seem to be pink potato leaf )
Please
see the Excel table for the rest of the statistics; nothing else unique or
interesting to add about the further listings.