Best Red Beefsteak Hybrid

[Nan_PA_6b]

Another selling point for Big Beef is 73 DTM.

Nan

[AKmark]

Mountain Fresh is exceptional, Garden Treasure is very good too.

[DonDuck]

Big Beef every year. The only hybrid I grow. Either six or twelve plants this year. I haven't made up my mind if I want a lot of tomatoes (six plants) the year or a truckload of tomatoes (twelve plants) this year.

[hl2601]

Oh my gosh- all the pics posted are making me salivate! What a cute Mom you have Nan! Andrey- I love learning about your tomatoes. Those varieties look amazing. Thanks for posting those.
Heide

[Andrey_BY]

Thanks.

My question to all is about the flavor of Big Beef - how is the acid/sweet balance?

Originally Posted by hl2601

Oh my gosh- all the pics posted are making me salivate! What a cute Mom you have Nan! Andrey- I love learning about your tomatoes. Those varieties look amazing. Thanks for posting those.
Heide

[DonDuck]

Originally Posted by Andrey_BY

Thanks.

My question to all is about the flavor of Big Beef - how is the acid/sweet balance?

I can't give you a brix number, but I like the flavor of Big Beef and my taste preference tends to lean towards the acidic side. I'm not a fan of "sweet" tomatoes.

[KarenO]

Wow Andrey, those are beautiful photos!
Great looking tomatoes
KarenO

[zipcode]

Originally Posted by Andrey_BY

Thanks.

My question to all is about the flavor of Big Beef - how is the acid/sweet balance?

On the acidic side. A good big Beef can be pretty gosh darnoodley good with good strong flavour.

[b54red]

Big Beef again. It was my favorite hybrid as far as production and dependability for many years and the taste is better than most. For pure flavor in a hybrid I would go with Brandy Boy but it lacks the strong disease package that is what makes Big Beef so productive in areas where that disease tolerance is needed.

I would recommend limiting the number of stems for larger fruit size and feeding it regularly. It is an amazingly durable tomato plant that produces fairly early and continues through the hottest weather pumping out good tasting tomatoes.

Bill

[Nan_PA_6b]

Originally Posted by zipcode

Big Beef is a good choice, it will need massive fertilizing if you want to achieve the taste potential though...

We fertilize minimally and grow in nearly-pure clay and get great flavor.

Nan

[carolyn137]

Red Hybrids that I have grown and liked for many years. But not so much lately since I've moved and can only have someone else raise my plants and another person is supposed to do this/that, but I never know if that's been done.

Supersonic F1
Moreton Hybrid F1
Jet Star F1
Ramapo F1
Better Boy F1
Big Boy F1

The above mainly for great taste, great production, but they don't have the multiple disease tolerances as other newer ones,which is fine with me since the operative word is tolerance,not resistance.

Here are some other suggestions , Google search/Tomatoville,to see what others have to say.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Harr...w=1706&bih=815

Carolyn

[DonDuck]

Carolyn,

For many years, multiple Better Boy plants were the only tomato I grew. I loved them, but I never thought of them as beefsteak. Mine were simply decent sized red tomatoes.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by DonDuck

Carolyn,

For many years, multiple Better Boy plants were the only tomato I grew. I loved them, but I never thought of them as beefsteak. Mine were simply decent sized red tomatoes.

Big Boy F1 was introduced in 1946 as bred by Dr. Oved Shifriss, and Better Boy was bred by can't remember his name right now but he escaped from Burpee in PA and took one of the Big Boy parents out to CA and that was introduced in 1948. And yes, I know both parents of Big Boy since I was trying to dehybridize it and sought Dr.Shifriss' to help out, and he did.

I agree that most of the time BB has round tomatoes, but not always. We grew many acres of both back on the farm where I was raised.

So what can turn a normally round fruit into an oblate(flattened stem end beefsteak shape),the most common reason is lack of complete fertilization of the ovules in the tomato ovary.And there are other reasons having to do with the summer they were grown and the weather as well.

Here is a link which describes other factors.

https://www.google.com/search?q=fact...&bih=815&dpr=1

Hope that helps,

Carolyn

[zipcode]

Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b

We fertilize minimally and grow in nearly-pure clay and get great flavor.

Nan

It's probably a great soil. I have grown Big Beef in poor soil and it was really bad tasting. Then in containers was also harder to please then most.
I have a friend with what seems like terrible clay soil that gets as a rock if dry (completely different place) and it's insanely fertile. Everything grows to gigantic sizes with exactly zero additions (it's still a new spot, things will probably not continue like this forever). Normal radishes grow like a beetroot, I helped him to set up a small garden and I overcrowded everything badly since I wasn't used to things growing like this.

[Johnniemar]

I grew big beef last season for the first time and it produced better than any of the other tomatoes i had in my garden. I got 60 tomatoes from one plant that i kept up with the production. It tasted great and was a beautiful tomato. The plants lasted all the way into frost buy i sprayed weekly (the whole garden) with daconil and copper.