Perhaps you're talking about the Red ( Landis) at Tomato Growers Supply.

Here's the back story.

It was Tom Hauch of Heirloom seeds who first got RB out of the SSE Yearbooks many years ago and it's still his signature variety at his excellent website. He sent seeds to Steve Miller at the Landis Museum on PA and it was Steve who traced it back and found that it indeed was Amish in origin and none of the other Brandyhwines have been documented as being so.

Linda at TGS also was listing two Red Brandywines that were NOT Red Brandywines at all, the sources was a commercial site in CA and I've pleaded with her, she's a good friend, to say so, but she keeps listing them b'c she says a lot of folks love both.

OK, so what she finally did was to get a real RB from the Landis Museum, she could have gotten it from elsewhere, even me, LOL, and listed it as Landis which implies a strain, but there are no strains of true Red Brandywine.

OK?

Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn! Ah I see, I suspected that there were more than one type of tomato called brandywine red or that there was at some point some type of crossing that had occured within the commercially available seeds. Or that there was some some degredation in the quality of the brandywine red from a lack of proper selection from commercial production (a little genetic drift, if you will). I think I have seen this with say Brandywine pink for example, where I have noted that the quality of the plants vary from company to company. For example from one seed source I get plants that produce few tomatoes whereas with another source, I get plants that set fruit really well.

I have seed of Brandywine red that I got from Tomatofest and grew for a season and it was ok, average taste, and a bit of wilt. Production was average too. Not really bad, but given the reputation, I expected more. I wanted to give brandywine red another go, but wondered whether there was a better strain of it. I think I will go ahead and give this Landis strain a try next summer.

Thank you again for answering Carolyn. I imagine that with all the questions about all the various "brandywines" that you probably get tired of explaining them again and again.

I have seed of Brandywine red that I got from Tomatofest and grew for a season and it was ok, average taste, and a bit of wilt. Production was average too. Not really bad, but given the reputation, I expected more. I wanted to give brandywine red another go, but wondered whether there was a better strain of it. I think I will go ahead and give this Landis strain a try next summer.

Thank you again for answering Carolyn. I imagine that with all the questions about all the various "brandywines" that you probably get tired of explaining them again and again.

******

Kevin, please remembeer that there are NO strains of Red Brandywine, just some wrong seeds out there. There are many places that carry the correct RB and the one Linda got from the Landis Museum is correct for the variety and it's NOT the Landis strain, that's just where she got it from.

No, I don't get tired trying to explain stuff about heirloom varieties. I have an advantage since I'm a Senior Citizen as to older history and have also grown over 3,000 varieties to date.(smile)

Carolyn

Opps, yep your right, I should have said correct brandywine red, not strain. BTW, I plan on buying your book one day. I have looked for it a few times at book stores with no luck, so I will have to order it online.

Good luck trying to buy my book b/c it went out of print and some places are charging up to $400 and I think that's ridiculous X 10.

I have three new copies here at home and am waiting until the price reaches $1000 and then I'll auction them off. LOL

The one place I know that still had some new copies at the regular price several months ago was Heirlooms Seeds, the one in PA. let me see if I can Google it and link to it for you below

I didn't check the book section to see if it was still in stock.
You might try Amazon for used copies as well.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Heirloom Seeds

Carolyn,

If the price of your book reaches $1000, then you should be able to autograph the ones you have and get $1500 apiece for them!

As much as I enjoy your book, if the price gets that high, I might send you mine to autograph and then we could split the proceeds after the sale. LOL!

Betsy

This post was edited by bets on Thu, Dec 27, 12 at 22:05

Carolyn, is yours the 100 heirloom tomatoes? Sounds interesting.

Yes caryl the name is 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden, first published in 1999 and went out of print by Workman two years ago.

At the time the book was published I'd grown about 1200 varieties and now it's up to over 3,000 and while many have asked me to write a second book, or at least give a list of others I like that's something I just can't do, for many reasons.

Carolyn, and Betsy, I'll think about your offer. LOL I do know someone who has a whole carton of the book but is sitting on them, as it were. LOL

I have seen Red Brandywine NOT in more catalogs than just TGS so I think the confusion is pretty wide spread at this point. I have grown Red Brandywine, I think mine came from Victory and is the correct seed. Strong production, globe shape and good flavor.

Linda, The good thing is that Linda Sapp went out and got a real RB.

A few years ago even Mike Dunton at Victory Seeds was selling a wrong PL version and several of us told him about that. And Tomatofest was also selling seeds on sale one year and Gary too had a wrong PL one.

There are plenty of places that,in addition to TGS one can get true RB and it was Tom Hauch at Heirloom Seeds in PA who first got it out of the SSE YEarbook and I think I linked to his site above.

Glenn Drowns at Sandhill Preservation has the correct one and I'm sure Tania does as well.
I don't think Adam Gleckler lists it b'c when he got back into the seed buiness it was all about getting varieties that would not be the standard ones and I didn't check REmy's site either, actually there are many other sites I don't know about either and didn't check any of them.

What happened is that Seeds by Design in CA, a wholesale place, sent out a PL RB to lots of places and then sent out a few more wrong RB;s and before that had sent out wrong varieties, I can't remember the name of the one important variety now, again, to several places.

Carolyn, who also knows that Victory Seeds has had the correct RB for many years and assumes that's also true of Tomatofest.

According to my list, Seeds By Design named a variety Mr. Stripey, unaware that Tigerella was also known as Mr. Stripey.

That is correct. At the time the person in charge at SBD knew practically nothing about anything other than hybrids, so when the Wayne Hilton who used to own TT and vt Bean, and seymours Seeds, etc, before they were sold to Jung's,sent seeds for a typical gold/red bicolor to SBD for seed production they named it Mr, Stripey, not knowing that Tigerella had already been unofficially called Mr. Stripey.

I don't like Tigerella but I do like the other two that came out of the original cross done by the Glass House Res, Inst in England, but those other two, Craigella and Tangella I do like.

I can't tell you how many times and at how many message sites, as well as sending e-mails to some seed places who showed wrong pictures and mixed up the two that I've done over the years.

Carolyn