question on big boy

If i have read the information right there was 4 different tomatoes used to make up big boy My question is is there anyone of the 4 that wouldn't be good to eat and how veried are the different plants
thanks Dave719

This is a 'pet' project of Carolyn's and she should be along before very long to post here.I just didn't want for you to think your post was being ignored,I just don't know enough to give you much information.

I do know that of Big Boy's parents,there are a couple of them that have never been made public,so don't know about how good to eat they all are.

Teddy Jones is one of the parents and is supposed to be a wonderful tomato,but as I said,Carolyn will have to answer with the details.

Melody thanks for replying I had figured that it might be a few days. Carloyn is at her busiest right now there growing season is going to end it the next few days if it hasn't all ready I was thinking of putting in a hillside plant like they use to do in ar., Mo., ky, and tn.just clear some woods and plant right on the nontilled cleared ground not much weeds or bugs the first year just let them lay on the ground I would think it was used all the way across the mountains to the east coast but don't know for sure

Dave,

When you think of four parents that were used to create a vaiety I'm sure you're thinking of Mortgage Lifter. The story on that and the four parents can be found best in the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog or online.

And of course there's a counter claim to Radiator Charlie's claim that he developed Mortgage Lifter. The Estler family has come forward and claimed they developed it first. That story can be found at Heirloomtomatoes. net

But then you didn't ask about that. LOL

Big Boy was perhaps the first successful hybrid that was created for the home gardener.

It was hybridized by Dr. Oved Schifriss when he was with Burpee back in the early 40's. One parent is a large pink heirloom from the midwest called Teddy Jones, and while Dr. Schifriss told me the other parent he said if I ever revealed it he would......, well lets not go there. LOL

Since Teddy Jones seeds are obviously not available and I can't tell you the other parent, your question can't be answered. But I really do think with the four parents you mentioned you were thinking of Mortgage Lifter anyway.

Teddy Jones is also one parent of Better Boy.

And Melody says it's a pet project of mine b/c she knows I've been trying to dehybridize Big Boy to get out Teddy Jones. Dr. Schifriss feels I can get out maybe 80% of the genes.

Carolyn

Thanks Carloyn IF one is pink it should be easy to tell the reason for my question was to see if i needed to plant another group for canning next year I knew you were trying to get teddy jonesout and though i would see what happened out of a 100 plants just wanted to know if i was going to get some that wasn't that good taste wise
dave719

i would see what happened out of a 100 plants just wanted to know if i was going to get some that wasn't that good taste wise

Dave,

Do you mean you want to plant 100 plants from saved Big Boy seed?

If you do you'll get mostly red fruited plants with a few pink fruited plants and none of them will have bad tasting fruits.

If you're planting out 100 plants from sowing Big Boy F1 seed then all plants will be identical since Big Boy is a hybrid.

I just wasn't sure from your post which you were planning to do.

Carolyn

Carlyon this will be 100 plants from saved big boy seed from this years big boys I knew that you were looking for teddy jones and as long as the fruit was going to be good i was just going to put them in for my canning and freezing tomatoes next year and then save seed from both types and go back with 50 of each the following year at that point we may have a seed that can be worked out to get what you want
it sounded like a fun prosess to do and see what we can get
I'm not against progress or hybrids but do think that the big boys shouldn't have the right to tie up op seeds
Dave 719

Carolyn, you have mail!

Carolyn, you have mail!

It's about 2:30 PM on Friday and actually I don't have mail unless you wrote to me via another website and your first name starts with an "M", but nada from someone named Agrinard as you post here. (smile)

Carolyn

Hmmm...I'll try that again.

Agrinard,

I just want you to know that I'm not being impolite in not answering you, re your two posts above, for I still haven't received any e-mails you might have sent.

If you send thru GW there shouldn't be a problem.

If you have my e-mail address I can say that Road Runner, if you have that, is having technical problems and e-mails sent from RR are not always getting through.

I've run into that the past two weeks and checked with AOL live online help to find out what the problem was and then an RR client also informed me, as did AOL, that RR was the problem.

Carolyn

No problem. I work for an ISP, and believe me....it happens.

(Hmmm...and here I thought I was on Carolyn's "block" list.)

(Shhh...course now, maybe I am, I sure have sent her some off the wall questions in the past!)

Back to the topic at hand tho...

How'd we all lose this Teddy Jones 'mater? Weren't people in the '40s still avidly saving seed as a normal part of their lifestyle/gardening?

How'd we all lose this Teddy Jones 'mater? Weren't people in the '40s still avidly saving seed as a normal part of their lifestyle/gardening?

Shoe,

I have only two folks blocked and you aren't one of them. LOL

I think I asnwered your question above but didn't go back to check, so...

Teddy Jones was grown by one family. Burpee paid them for ALL seeds they had and all future rights and if they had had seeds left they would have continued growing them.

As it was, when Ermal K, who was the SSE member who initially wrote to me about this since he was a neighbor of the folks who grew Teddy Jones, came back from WWII, they no longer were growing it and told him all the details and why they had no seed.

So Burpee initially and then Petoseed when John Peto took Teddy Jones seed with him when he left Burpee, are the only ones who had ownership to Teddy Jones after the seeds left the hands of that one family.

Ermal desperately wanted to find seeds of it which is why he wrote to me.

Carolyn

Bummer.
So Teddy Jones is either gone for good, or locked up tight somewhere (with John Peto or descendents of his?).

Would the seed companies still be using it to create more Big Boy stock?

I'm lookin' forward to the day when I hear you hollering and jumpin' for joy. "Teddy Jones is home!" Best of all to you in your endeavor.

Shoe,

There will never be a time when Teddy Jones comes home, which is one of the reasons I've been dehybridizing Big Boy to get at it. Sigh.

Yes, hybrid seed for both Big Boy and Better Boy uses Teddy Jones as one parent since both of those hybrids are simple one on one crosses, they don't have the complicated breeding lines that more modern tomatoes have.

Teddy Jones rests with Petoseed which is now a part of Seminis Seeds. and it's they who procude the hybrid Big Boy and Better Boy Seed.

Burpee's, even if they had retained some of the TJ seed, which they didn't when John Peto took it, hasn't had any breeders for anything for many many years and gets all their hybrids from elsewhere, as well as the OP's.

Carolyn

Dogs! Thanks Carolyn.

Maybe I should've said "Teddy Jones returns, and has FINALLY found a NEW home!" (In your gardens! The result of your dehybridizing.)

So, the original strain is under lock and key with Seminis.

Is there a possibility, no matter how small, that other families (besides the one that sold their seed to Burpee) grew TJ? I realize you said only one family grew it, but I wonder where they got it from. Was it a pass-along, a mutation, or did it come from over-seas relatives/immigrants? I wonder what the ancestory of that family was, and if that will tell us the origin of TJ.

More intriguing, I wonder if TJ was passed down to relatives (secretly) after the Burpee buy-out.

See what you got me started on? Now I'll never rest till I find that TJ! It would be so great to bring back a blast from the past, making it available to the general public.

Darn it Shoe, now you've got me intrigued. Maybe someone out there could hit a few geneology sites and come up with some possibilities. Even if it were possible that a descendant did have seeds, they would likely have to break a solemn oath if they were to share them.

Will get back to you two tomorrow late.

Too tired right now and a long trip re right eye problems tomorrow/

It is just so much fun when one is single and has to drive an hour to her eye doc and then has the eyes dilated and then has to sit there in the Office and then "lie" about her abilty to see well enough to drive the hour home. Sigh.

Carolyn

Carolyn, I know exactly what you are talking about! I once roamed a mall (don't care for them very much) aftern getting the eyeball dilating treatment. Couldn't find my truck in the parking lot, much less drive it home. No fun! (At the time I had to get home to milk goats!)

I agree Arinerd...someone would have to break an oath to someone (whether it was Burpee or family). Still, it seems there should be a time frame on this, sorta like a copyright law, eh?

All I can say about your questions about TJ is what Ermal , the neighbor has told me. One family. No one else with seeds. Look, Ermal is a well known neighbor to them and he wouldn't be writing to me if he could have gotten seeds.

I can ask him again what more he might know, but I doubt much more in addition to what he's already told me.

So seeds rest only with Petoseed for production of Big boy and Better Boy F1 seed as far as I know.

Carolyn

Oh no...don't bother Ermal, Carolyn. My question was perhaps just rhetorical, or guessing even (or Hoping?).

Thanks for all the info. That is a great bit of history.

Agreed.

So, now Seminis owns "Teddy Jones".... Well, they did pay for it.

I guess I don't understand why anyone would go through the trouble of dehybridizing a hybrid to get an open pollinated variety that will never be Teddy Jones.

First, because there is so much other tomato diversity to play around with, and second, because I have grown Big Boy and Better Boy, and they are decent varieties for big commercial growers, but stacked up to most varieties you can grow in your garden, they are (in my opinion) quite below average in taste. And, taste is everything.

Phred,

Burpee paid $124 for exclusive rights to the Teddy Jones Seeds. Yes, they did pay money.

Why am I going to the trouble of trying to get out Teddy Jones? Purely historical interest and curiosity.

Dr Schifriss feels I can out about 85-90 % of the genes, and that's pretty good. No one could do that with a modern hybrid where there could well be up to eight parental contributions for any one hybrid variety.

So I'm not discussing the worthiness of either Big Boy or Better Boy at all. I've been discussing Teddy Jones as being one parent of both and have shared with you that my particular interest in getting out as much as I can of Teddy Jones is both historical and curiosity.

Taste is the only reason I grow tomatoes and neither Big Boy nor Better Boy would be in my top 100.

And yes, there's lots of genetic diversity to play with. Lots of folks send me accidetal crosses, and I have some of my own ( a really neat one this year between Regina's Yellow, a bicolor, and an unknown pink heart) and I love to dehybridize them to see what I can get out.

About 95 % of all heirloom tomato varieties ( about 8-10,000 varieties known) derive from the dehybridization of an accidental cross pollination. The other 5% derive from a spontaneous mutation from a preexisting variety.

I grow mainly heirlooms, out of choice, but do grow hybrids every few years, just for comparison's sake.

Carolyn

I also have nothing against dehybridizing to get something new (or even largely "old") and cool from accidental or purposeful crosses. In fact, I am all for it.

I just can't imagine the tomato you get from dehybridizing Better or Big boy being new and cool. And, since 85-90% Teddy Jones still isn't Teddy Jones, I would argue it won't be "historical" either.

One question that fascinates me, though, is -- How was it that Peto was allowed to take Teddy Jones when he left Burpee's. Did he pay them for the rights to take it?

I just can't imagine the tomato you get from dehybridizing Better or Big boy being new and cool. And, since 85-90% Teddy Jones still isn't Teddy Jones, I would argue it won't be "historical" either.

Well it won't be NEW, but I think it will be "cool". (smile)And you've got those percentages reversed above in that 85-90% WILL be Teddy Jones.

Historical? I'll never be offering those seeds to anyone and representing them as an historical variety. It's historical in that it was one parent of two of the most popular hybrids ever developed that were grown by home grdeners and are still grown by many today. And it's historical in that most folks have no idea that an heirloom is a parent of each of them.

Besides, you forget the challenge of dehybridizing hybrids. I love challenges.

(One question that fascinates me, though, is -- How was it that Peto was allowed to take Teddy Jones when he left Burpee's. Did he pay them for the rights to take it?)

From what I understand it wasn't that Peto was so much allowed to take those seeds and others, he just took them. I don't know anything more.

Carolyn