📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Zailiyskiy Alatau Orange
- 🌍 Origin: Bred by the renowned tomato breeder Vitaliy Alifirov from Almaty, Kazakhstan. This orange version is a natural segregation (mutation) of his original red Zailiyskiy Alatau variety.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. A vigorous plant known for being an absolute workhorse with incredibly high yields.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Gorgeous, sharply pointed oxhearts that resemble mountain peaks. They are large, meaty, and dense, weighing up to 1.1 lbs (500 g).
- 👅 Flavor: Exceptionally sweet. In hot weather, it produces almost pure sugar flavor with virtually zero acidity.
- 💡 Naming Confusion: Often circulated in seed trades as “Zailiyskiy Alatau Yellow”, but the fully ripe fruits are undeniably a vibrant, bright orange.
Zailiyskiy Alatau Orange. This variety is a natural segregation of the original red Zailiyskiy Alatau bred by Vitaliy Alifirov (Almaty, Kazakhstan). Many people who planted seeds from the red version ended up getting both red and orange variants.
It is an indet and extremely productive. The fruits are beautiful, sharply pointed oxhearts that literally look like mountain peaks. They can weigh up to 1.1 lbs (500 g), are very meaty, and absolutely delicious 👍
I received these seeds as a gift under the name “Zailiyskiy Alatau Yellow”. I’m pretty sure it’s the exact same thing as the orange one. It’s weird that I didn’t take any pictures of the ripe fruits. When fully mature, they truly are a bright orange color.
This is definitely a variety for people who love super sweet tomatoes. At least during this incredibly hot season, mine grew out extremely sweet with practically zero acidity.
Zailiyskiy Alatau (Orange) really made me happy. This variety is an absolute workhorse with great flavor. Thanks to Svetikk 🌹
Wonderful variety! The fruits are dense, sweet, and have my favorite orange color. The yield is fantastic. I noticed that the higher up the vine they grow, the pointier their tips get. By September, the ones at the top of the plant had extremely long pointed noses, though they didn’t have enough time to bulk up before the season ended.
A lot of people have this variety floating around as Zailiyskiy Alatau Yellow, but it is undeniably orange. Svetikk, thank you so much 🙏
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The name Zailiyskiy Alatau might be a mouthful for English speakers, but it holds a beautiful meaning!
Zailiyskiy Alatau (Trans-Ili Alatau) is a majestic mountain range in the Tian Shan system that borders Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. The breeder of this tomato, Vitaliy Alifirov, lives in Almaty. He named this oxheart variety after his local mountains because the sharply pointed tips of the tomatoes look exactly like the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Alatau range!
As mentioned in the thread, Alifirov originally released this as a red tomato. However, genetics took over, and a natural recessive mutation occurred in the gardens of seed savers, blessing the tomato world with this gorgeous, ultra-sweet orange version.
