try doing forum search because those question have already been answer this spring and there is no point in repeating the answers again.

OK, will try. But still appreciate if others chime in if they haven't already.

YEs, there are other threads here about the various Brandywines but sometimes they're hard to find, so I'll give some summaries.

1 and 2 are not brandywines, they came from seeds by design a wholsale place in CA and Linda continues to list them b'c many folks like them.

3 is not a Brandywine either, if you read the blurb. Craig LeHoullier had a natural cross between Brandywine abd Tad occur in his garden and a friend who was helping out with selections from the F2 seed and this one person got what was described, but it isn't a true brandywine, being a selection of a cross. Quite newly known and not much feedback. The original x also gave rise to Little Lucky and Lucky Cross, two excellent gold/red bicolors.

4,OTV Brandywine is the one I think might do best in the south for a Fall crop b'c it sets fruit better than the others inhigh temps, and in retrospect Craig and I should not have named it OTV Brandywine either, but what is, is.

5, is the standard Red Brandywine, not a strain, but the Landis Museum in PA is where Linda got the seeds, which had been sent to Steve Miller at the Landis by Tom Hauch of Heirloom Seeds, who was the first to get RB out of the SSE YEarbook and offer it commercially.

6, is just the Sudduth strain of Brandywine, as so described

7, I can't understand. red/pink fruits, Amish Hierloom for 1885 which speaks to Red Brandywine, but RB is RL and this is described as PL.

(with a good balance between sweet and acid, more sweet than acid, and not mealy) is what you posted. Almost all varieties have the same pH, so that's not anissue as I see it and blanced is in the mouth of the eater and none of them are mealy, but certain weather conditions can cause a few varieties to become mealy, mainly the gold/red bicolors.

Summary:

It really comes down to your choice b'c no one can describe to you what they taste, only you can know what they taste like to you based on all the variablessuch as how you grow your tomatoes, what the soil or container mix is like, what amendments and how much and how often to you use and what the weeather is like in any one season. If you must have a PURE Brandywine, then the Sudduth would be fine, but no true Brandywine I know has a sweet taste, rather, much more complex than that. If you don't care if it's a selection from a cross then you can try the Liam's one or OTV.

And I think that OTV Brandywine, as noted in the blurb is best for setting fruits in high temp conditions, which will occur the first couple of months that you set out your plants in your 10b area inlate summer.

Carolyn

Thanks, Carolyn. If I order now, I should get the seeds within a week. Then about a week to germinate, that puts me in mid-August. It stays hot here until the middle of October, then it is hit or miss whether we get cooler weather or not. The last few years, we have stayed hot and humid through mid-November. Then it got unseasonably cold by mid-December. It has just been awful here the last few years.

OTV says 85 days - is that 85 days after you transplant a one month old seedling?

I think 85 days as a DTM is too much and would peg it at late midseason in the 75-80 days region.

DTM's are sheer guesstimates anyway, but I wouldn't say it was a late season variety, which for me and most folks is 80 days plus.

A DTM means the time from putting out the transplant to first ripe fruits, not the time from sowing the seeds.

Carolyn

how big should the transplants be?

6-8 weeks old

I have a question, what constitutes a Brandywine?
And what about Cowlick's Brandywine?

"dickiefickle I have a question, what constitutes a Brandywine? "

there is no real answer to that question. but I am sure several people could ramble on about the subject for 20 pages or more.

Any name can be given to any tomato.

"Brandywine" generally refers to the Brandywine Sudduth tomato (#6 in the first post) or the Red Brandywine, aka Landis (#5).

In other tomatoes, it hints that a variety is either descended from one of the excellent-tasting 19th century heirloom Brandywines -- or that it has qualities that remind the namer of one of those Brandywines -- or that the seller hopes you'll buy into the legend.

Cowlick's Brandywine is named that because it was purchased at a garden center named "Cowlick" and the tag said either "Brandywine" or "Pink Brandywine." A GWebber named camochef bought one and thought it was better than anything he'd ever had. He tried to identify it, but the nursery owner wasn't sure exactly what seed he'd grown. camochef saved seed, then the next year compared it with all sorts of similar tomatoes -- Brandywines and Brandywine types -- but decided it was unique. He named his variety after the garden center where he found it and promoted it on tomato forums.

yummy, I agree with 6-8 weeks as noted above, but since I don't know how you grow your transplants nor how fast they'll grow I'll just add that I like to set out ones that are about 6-9 inches tall.

As to the question about what constitutes a Brandywine, one first has to think of the three known family ones which are:

Yellow Brandywine
Red Brandywine
Brandywine

......and there's no known relationship between the three of them.

If you look in any SSE YEarbook you can see many listings for Brandywine this or that, meaning, Glick's, Pawers and on and on. And just as with the various Mortgage Lifters they usually indicate the name of the person who grew a Brandywine or Mortgatge Lifter and attached their name to it.

And then there's the amusing part of it. There's one called Brandywine (Pawers), which is the result of a typo that's persisted since it was Roger Wentling of PA who listed it and his SSE code would then be PA WE R, just as mine from NYS state would be NY MA C.

When Brandywine has been part of a natural cross and then a selection from that hybrid taken out to the OP state then sometimes Brandywine becomes part of the name such as Liam's one or the OTV one.

If you want to know more about the history of various brandywines, pure ones or others, I suggest you go to Victory Seeds and read the article written by Craig LeHoullier. He did the family ones and I did the others and the article needs updating but both of us have had other priorities in getting around to doing that.

Hope that helps.

Carolyn

"yummy, I agree with 6-8 weeks as noted above, but since I don't know how you grow your transplants nor how fast they'll grow I'll just add that I like to set out ones that are about 6-9 inches tall."

Thanks, that is helpful. I germinate and grow my transplants in little black plastic pots outside filled with soil rather than seed starting mix. It has produced a good germination rate for me so I will stick with it. I only have room for one variety this year anyhow, and will be giving away any extras to friends with large yards.

Then I transplant them to the larger pot and bury the stems up to the last leaves since that is supposed to give you stronger/deeper roots. They seem to grow pretty fast here outside so I will use the 6-9 inches as a guide.

If it does take 6 weeks to transplant, that would put me at the beginning of October. The problem is that it has been staying ungodly hot and humid here through mid-November followed by unseasonably cold Decembers. So what has been happening is that it is too hot and humid to set fruit until mid-November then once the fruit does set, it gets too cold in December for the fruit to ripen. Not good for fall tomatoes.

The spring has been bad, too since the awful heat and humidity started at the end of March instead of the end of April.

Thanks for chiming in, Carolyn. We're always looking for your advice. I got seeds in a trade last winter that were only labeled "Brandywine." I had never grown them before, so decided to try them. The plant is regular leaf and seems to be very healthy and disease resistant. The fruit are red and weigh about 1/2 pound and are very tasty. Do you think I have #2 or #5?
Thanks, John A