Better Boy Plus Hybrid Tomato Seeds

The classic Better Boy tomato holds a Guinness Book of World Records championship for yields (nearly 350 pounds of tomatoes from a single plant over a single season), and Better Boy Plus is an improvement on the original Better Boy, with greater fruit setting, disease resistance, and adaptability. A hybrid beefsteak tomato, Better Boy Plus is grown as a fruit vegetable that sets small “perfect” flowers followed by firm, unbelievably juicy, bright red tomatoes, weighing around a pound. They have good uniformity and a higher brix value (6.5), meaning they have the same unbeatable flavor as Better Boy, but sweeter. A great slicer, Better Boy Plus can also be canned or cooked into sauces. 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 and provide vitamin A and potassium. They also contain carotenoid lycopene and beta-carotene as well as phenolic acids and flavonoids.

Typically grown as an annual, Better Boy 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, Better Boy 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.

Better Boy Plus grows best in a sunny location with deep, moist, humusy, fertile loams. It has a high resistance to Alternaria stem canker Aal; fusarium wilt Fol:1; gray leaf spot Sbl,Sl,Ss; tomato mosaic virus ToMV:0-2; and verticillium wilt Va:1/Vd:1. It has intermediate resistance to tomato spotted wilt TSWV:0 and root-knot Ma,Mi,Mj. Self-pollinating, the plant will bear fruit without any pollen from other varieties.

A warm-season vegetable, sensitive to cold temperatures and frost, tomato seed should be direct sown into warm spring soil after all threat of frost has passed. Seeds can also be started indoors about 8 weeks before transplanting to the garden. 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.