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Madisonville, TN

In addition to our Big Zac plants we will have about 75 Brandywine and Hillbilly plants that we grow for market. Last year the heirlooms had several tomatoes approaching 2 pounds with no special care. Has anyone grown a Brandywine or Hillbilly plant and pruned it, etc. for size? How heavy of a tomato did you get.

3/17/2014 5:09:36 PM

Trumbull, CT 06611, USA

I grew brandywines 2 years ago. Plants consistently produced 2 lb tomatoes without any care at all. Growing again this year.

3/17/2014 7:02:19 PM

Wv

Iv grown the brandywine to 3lbs with work.most of old strains will go three if you feed them.Biggest prob with most is getting a good mega bloom.Best single bloom for me was the FATBOY I planted many over three pounds on single bloom. I think there is a pic in my diary of one. treetop

3/18/2014 10:54:38 AM

Allentown, PA

Conceivably you could take these two strains to the three plus pound mark but as Treetop has said you are going to need mega bloom opportunities in order to see those strains reach past that level.

The key in anything concerning high weight is the mega bloom and these two strains have not YET produced anything of real size.

Notice I said YET. If you have the room to spare to explore additional strains of beefsteaks and other large tomatoes then I would be doing just that.

I'm not wanting to discourage you are anyone from growing something outside the normal lines of tomatoes that have given us heavyweights. We need those with the room to explore past these known lines in order to give the giants community another option of strain or possibly an advance in giant growing itself.

3/18/2014 11:11:03 AM

Wv

I think I have some brandywine crossed big zac seeds if you want to try them iv never planted them so I cant tell you if it worked or not. tt

3/18/2014 12:12:35 PM

Madisonville, TN

Thanks for the responses. We have plenty of space for experimental plants, so I think I will do a Big Zac/Brandywine and a Big Zac/Hillbilly cross this year. It will be interesting to see what the results are in the future. A giant bi-color would look cool.
We have grown both heirlooms for years and they have always produced well and have had tomatoes aproaching 2 pounds every year with no pruning and just some 6-12-12 added once per year. This year some of the heirlooms will get the same treatment as our Big Zacs. We will see how they do.

3/18/2014 5:53:20 PM