Big Beef Plus Tomato Seeds

Days to Maturity: 75

Indeterminate

Big Beef Plus, a hybrid F1 beefsteak tomato, sets small "perfect" flowers, followed by big, round, beefy fruits, weighing between 7 ½ to 8 ½ ounces, with excellent old-time tomato flavor and great texture. An improved variety of the classic Big Beef, the tomatoes are bigger, redder, and sweeter; and the plants have greater disease resistance and yield potential. Tomatoes are considered a superfood for their nutrient rich content, having a high (top 20) Aggregate Nutrient Density Index score (ANDI), or micronutrient-per-calorie density. Tomatoes are a good source of vitamin C, vitamin A, and potassium. They also contain phytonutrients, including the carotenoids lycopene and beta-carotene.

Typically grown as an annual, Big Beef Plus, an herbaceous tender perennial, is a member of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), which contains plants that typically grow in temperate to tropical regions. A vigorous indeterminate variety, often called a "vining" tomato, Big Beef Plus requires staking or caging for support. Blossoms and fruit continue to develop as the vine grows, so, it bears an impressive amount of fruit over the course of a season.

Big Beef Plus grows best in a full sun location with moist, humusy, deep, fertile loam. It has high resistance to stem canker (Aal), fusarium crown and root rot (For), fusarium wilt (Fol:1,2), gray leaf spot (Sbl/Sl/Ss), tomato mosaic virus (ToMV:0-2), tomato torrado virus (ToTV), and verticillium wilt (Va/Vd:1). It has intermediate resistance to tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) and root-knot (Ma/Mi/Mj). Self-pollinating, it will bear fruit without any pollen from other varieties.

A warm-season vegetable, sensitive to cold temperatures and frost, it should be direct sown into warm spring soil after all danger of frost has passed. Flowers begin to set fruit with night temperatures between 55 and 75°F. Protect plants with row covers if temperatures are expected to dip below 50°F. Mulching helps to moderate soil temperature and to maintain soil moisture.