Brandokee
MO MU K
- Brandywine x Cherokee Purple F1. Large vigorous indeterminate regular leaf plant. Mid season. Fruit were ~12 oz and pinkish purple. 'Brandokee' has ended up being a reference name for the segregating offspring.
- Source
- Brandywine was from Johnny's Seed and Cherokee Purple was from Craig Lehoullier
- Year
- 1997
History
Keith Mueller: The original cross was a cooperative effort between several people from the Undernet #gardening channel - momblanche (NY?), Chris Malik (Ct) and Keith Mueller (NC). As far as I know no one has seed from the original cross. Momblanche did give out F1 seed to someone else but I do not know whom or when. After the original cross only Chris looked at segregating populations. I moved to Missouri and did not pick up the project again until 1999. I referred to it then as "Purple Brandokee". I saw interesting things that year in the F2's however nothing got saved that year because a raccoon/possum got into seed containers and mixed everything up. I did see the one odd heart shape type pop up.
In 2003 I revived the project and grew out new F2's and a F3 potato leaf (PL) selection of seeds I got from Chris that I referred to as "Huntsokee" (he referred to mine as "Mulokee"). Momblanche was no longer interested in the project. I also sent F2 seed to several people in California - coronabarb, Laurel G. and Janet A.
The Huntsokee lines segregated out some dwarf PL and all those lines looked almost exactly like Brandywine. Of these, I pursued only the dwarf lines labeling them HB02 and HB04. HB04 got to the F5 generation. The flavor was ok but the set was poor. The shorter plants produced smaller fruit. So I gave up on them. They may make a decent parent for a dwarf PL cross if the right combination increases the set.
Of the lines sent out to California coronabarb sent out F3 seed to some. Janet saw the off-type heart shape and sent it back to me. Laurel found a yellow bicolor that was named "Blondokee" and returned to me a sample (F3). I have been working on developing a stable 'Blondokee'. I took two lines to the F6 stage, one larger fruited and one smaller and more productive, but was not happy with the end result flavor-wise so I scrapped them and started over. Laurel got impatient and released one from these she named Laurel's California Gold. I am still working on coming up with a Blondokee I like. From the original F3 seed Laurel sent me a red PL type segregated out. That ended up becoming Liz Birt.
The 2003 Mulokee/Brandokee F2 lines ended up producing or contributing to the following varieties:
I was able to advance generations faster thanks to David Hallett in Waikato, New Zealand.
After 2 years I went back to the F3 seed of the unusual heart shape (not from Janet). These ended up segregating into a variety of unusual shapes. I have pursued 1 RL heart and 3 other lines that are elongated pastes similar to Opalka in shape. One is RL and the other 2 are PL with wilty foliage - one is pink the other red. As of 2008 all these lines are stable. I am working on an increase. One has been named Henry by Evan McCarthy, Jenny McCarthy's son, and will be used to help raise money for an autism charity of their choosing.
Brandokee is also in the background of several other lines including Purple Haze and several other more complex crosses currently being developed which are incorporating disease resistance and other flavor attributes.
Related
- Bear Creek
- Blondokee
- Boyd Haley F1
- Dora
- Gary'O Sena
- Henry
- Liz Birt
- Laurel's California Gold
- Purple Haze