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Brandywine
and Company:
What We Know and What We Don’t
(One Person’s Opinion)
by
Craig LeHoullier
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.
[This tomato is differentiated in the trade as
Brandywine, Sudduth Strain.]
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.

Advertisement
from The Ohio Farmer, January 12, 1889
From the Archive of Jim Huber
An old Burpee catalog
(1892) described it as a red tomato that is "inferior to Matchless"
(a red, medium large sized Burpee variety).

Burpee
Catalog Reprint. States, "Introduced in 1886 by W.
Atlee Burpee & Co., Philadelphia
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 Male and I obtained from the USDA seed collection
several tomatoes with the name "Mikado" included:
The latter two seed samples, in limited grow-outs, yielded
indeterminate, regular leaf plants with large red (scarlet)
beefsteak type fruit of fine 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 as Pawer’s Brandywine, thus
illustrating how names can be improperly perpetuated.
Substrains,
selections, and erroneous names:
(first
appeared with this name in 1999)
Pink Brandywine ("pink"
is redundant and unnecessary – listed this way once, in 1991)
Joyce’s
Strain (first
appeared in 1995)
Amish
(probably
a supposition; first listed in 1987)
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. (NOTE: William Woys Weaver, in his
book, draws the inaccurate conclusion that Shah is a medium sized
cream or white tomato).
Substrains
and selections:
Platfoot
Yellow Brandywine (first listed in 1996) – some
have found that this selection of Yellow Brandywine by Gary
Platfoot gives smoother fruit and a better yield. I have not yet
grown this particular strain, but Carolyn Male and others find it
to be better than the regular YB.
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.
Sub-strains,
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).
History: First
listed in the SSE in 1999, seed saved from a variety offered in
1998 for the first time by the Tomato Seed Company –
apparently a single plant selection in a field of Brandywine
being grown out by the California company Seeds by Design. It is
surmised that it originated by an accidental cross of Brandywine
with a regular leaf "purple/black" tomato such as
Cherokee Purple or Black from Tula.
History
of the Brandywine Tomatoes in the SSE Yearbooks
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)
(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:
Red
Brandywine (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:
Red
Brandywine (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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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.
-
Red
Brandywine
(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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(21 listings, 6 pink potato leaf, most of the rest red regular
leaf).
-
Pink
section: Brandywine (51 listings).
-
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
section:
Yellow
Brandywine (22 listings).
-
Yellow
Brandywine, Platfoot
(6 listings).
1999:
-
Red
section: Brandywine, Heart-shaped (5 listings).
-
Brandywine,
OTV
(15 listings).
-
Red
Brandywine
(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, originally 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).
-
Red
Brandywine
(22 listings – 12 of which are red regular leaf, rest seem to be
pink potato leaf ).
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