AMSEED American Seed Intelligence Platform
AMSeed · American Seed Intelligence Platform https://amseed.com/varieties/big-boy-tomato
Tomato variety

Big Boy

F1 hybrid tomato

Breeding
F1 hybrid
Growth habit
Indeterminate
Days to maturity
78-80 days
2 sources, none independent · basis unstated
Fruit
red, large
Weight
10-16 oz
2 sources, none independent
Bred by
W. Atlee Burpee & Co.
Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners

Grey captions say what stands behind that particular figure. Breeding, growth habit and fruit characters carry no caption because they rest on the record's sources as a whole rather than citing their own; closing that gap is ordinary outstanding work, not a finished job.

The breeder attribution here is supported by Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners. These claims name their own evidence rather than resting on the record's source list as a whole, because a species that distinguishes a variety, or an attribution to a breeding programme, is worth being able to check on its own.

Origin & history

Burpee's 1949 landmark, the hybrid that created the home-garden hybrid tomato market and made 'Boy' a tomato dynasty. Bred by Oved Shifriss at Burpee's Fordhook Farm.

Measurements

MeasurementValueContext
Days to maturity 78-80 days Consensus range across the cited sources, which include both independent references and commercial catalogs.
Fruit weight 10-16 oz Typical range for the cultivar, as a consensus across the cited sources. Not a measured mean from any single crop: fruit weight varies with season, spacing and where on the plant the fruit set.

Against the rest of the tomato database

Where this variety sits among every tomato we hold a comparable figure for. Position is not merit: earlier is not better than later, and hotter is not better than milder. Only cultivar-level figures are compared, never trial results, and maturity is only ranked against figures counted the same way.

Days to maturity 78-80 days · ranked at its midpoint, 79
47.5 median 75 90

later than 71% of the 258 tomatoes we hold a figure for. None of these figures state whether they are counted from sowing or from transplant, so they are ranked against each other on the assumption that suppliers use one convention, which is not something any of them says.

Fruit weight 10-16 oz · ranked at its midpoint, 13.0
2.5 median 12.0 32.0

heavier than 53% of the 72 tomatoes we hold a figure for.

Traits

Disease resistance

No documented disease resistance, typical of heirlooms and older open-pollinated varieties. See tomato diseases for the cultural playbook that fills the gap.

Related varieties

Explore all tomato varieties · compare any two · when to plant it where you are

Sources & References

Evidence: 2 sources, 1 seed catalog and 1 community collection. No independent reference documents this yet.

  1. Burpee catalog · W. Atlee Burpee & Co., Seed Catalog
  2. Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners · Cornell University Cooperative Extension, Community Collection