📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Dr. Lyle
- 🌍 Origin: A legendary USA heirloom from West Virginia. It was famously introduced to the seed-saving community by Craig LeHoullier, who received it from George Korbel (whose father-in-law was the eponymous Dr. Lyle).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. Vigorous and highly productive vines.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Massive pink beefsteaks that typically range from 14 to 21 oz (400–600g). This variety is highly prone to producing “megablooms” early in the season, resulting in crazy, ribbed, boat-like or “boxing glove” shaped mega-fruits that can easily exceed 1.5 lbs (700g+).
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: A top-tier slicer. Renowned for its rich, sweet, old-fashioned, and perfectly balanced tomato flavor.
Seeds are from V. Redko. Here is her description:
Indeterminate, large pink beefsteaks, oblate shape, weighing 14–21 oz (400-600g), very productive, excellent taste.
Grew it in the greenhouse. Good yield. The fruits look like a boxing glove 😆 The fruit in the photo grew from a megabloom, and its weight is 1.57 lbs (713g).
Bumping this thread.
This was the ultimate discovery of the season for me. My seeds originally trace back to Tatiana Kouchnareva.
I really loved it way back in 2014.
When I read that the fruit has an “oblate” shape, I just couldn’t picture what it actually looked like 🤷♀️ Now I finally get it, it really is a boxing glove!
Grew it in the greenhouse. I pruned it to two leaders. Mid-early maturity. High yield. The flavor is good, well-balanced, and nicely tomatoey. For me, it dumped its harvest pretty quickly – all the tomatoes seemed to ripen at once.
I got my seeds from Redko. The tomato I grew turned out a bit different from the others in this thread. The fruit shape was very unusual. But I really liked the taste. Anyway, see for yourselves:
A great slicer variety, highly productive. Sweet and juicy. Easily pushing 10.5+ oz (300g+).
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👨🌾 Editor’s Botany Note: The “Megabloom” Phenomenon
Notice how Ovechka and Elena describe the giant 1.5 lb tomato as looking like a “boxing glove”? This is a classic hallmark of a Megabloom (officially known as fasciation).
Early in the season, large beefsteak heirlooms like Dr. Lyle will often push out a massive, ugly, dandelion-looking yellow blossom on the very first truss. This happens when two or three separate blossoms fuse together into one mutant flower due to cool weather or genetics. If properly pollinated, this megabloom will grow into a single, fused mega-tomato! Because it’s literally multiple tomatoes grown together, it develops deep ribs, boat shapes, or that famous “boxing glove” look. If you are trying to break the 2-pound mark in your garden, never prune off those ugly first blossoms!
