Quick Summary of Avietiniai (Aventuniai)
- 🌍 Origin: A commercial/heirloom variety from Lithuania. In the Russian seed market, it circulates under the misspelled name Aventuniai (Авентюняй). However, its true Lithuanian name is Avietiniai, which simply translates to “Raspberry” (referring to its crimson-pink color). Often distributed by the Russian seed vendor Valery Popenko.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (though some growers note it behaves more like a mid-tall semi-determinate). It does not produce excessive foliage or suckers, making it relatively low-maintenance. Can be successfully pruned to 2, 3, or even 4 stems. Showed excellent resistance to Late Blight (Phytophthora) in open ground tests.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, beautiful pink/crimson beefsteaks. Average weight is around 300 g (10.5 oz), with the largest fruits easily exceeding 500 g (1.1 lbs). The fruits are clean, with no hard green shoulders or white cores inside. However, they can be prone to cracking in inconsistent watering conditions or greenhouses.
- 👅 Flavor: Reviews are heavily mixed and dependent on the weather. In good conditions, it is praised as exceptionally sweet, meaty, and delicious. In poor conditions, it is described as bland and “just another standard pink tomato.”
- ⏳ Maturity & Yield: Mid-season. Highly sensitive to weather swings; yields can range from disappointingly low (a few fruits per plant) to massive (nearly 5 kg / 10+ lbs per plant).
The tomatoes grew in the greenhouse. The bushes were mid-tall, low-yielding, and mid-season in ripening. I led them into 3-4 stems, there weren’t many suckers. The fruits are large, meaty; I really liked their taste, featuring a pronounced sweetness. Seeds were from Popenko.
Mine was also low-yielding, also grown in the greenhouse, led into 2 stems.
Regarding the taste, I have a different opinion 😳 — I didn’t taste any pronounced sweetness (perhaps my growing conditions were different), i.e., it was completely indistinguishable from many other standard pink-fruited tomatoes. Oh, and it cracked quite badly for me 😞
I’ll keep it in my seed collection, but I will be planting tastier and more productive varieties.
I second the previous comment. I thought it was just me who got a completely bland one, to put it mildly. Popenko advertised it as a highly productive variety… and I even have questions about whether it’s truly an indeterminate. I was going to try again to get a big harvest in 2014, but thank you for bringing up this variety and sharing your impressions. I definitely won’t be planting it now, so there!
My Aventuniai grew in Open Ground. I grew it in two stems. Despite our rainy, cold summer, it was quite productive and tasty. I really want to keep it on my grow list, but there are so many other varieties I want to try. Seeds were from Lida. Oh, I forgot to add: it survived Late Blight (Phytophthora) incredibly well, meaning the losses were minimal.
Girls… I apologize, but the transcription of the name here isn’t quite right. These tomatoes are Avietiniai, which translates from Lithuanian as “Raspberry” (crimson). Once again, apologies for the correction.
2014 facts, greenhouse: low yield, only 7 tomatoes on one stem, no mind-blowing taste was observed.
A solid candidate for “Disappointment of 2014”.
I had the exact same impression of this variety as Svetlana (Lana).
I liked it very much 👍
Meaty, tasty, sweet 😋 😋 😋
My Aventuniai was massive, strong, and highly productive two years ago, but less productive last year (the summer was very bad). The fruits are large, did not crack, there were a lot of them and they all looked uniform, without any white cores or hard green spots at the stem. A good variety, but sensitive to the whims of the weather, just like many others.
Beautiful tomatoes, a couple of the largest ones surpassed 500g (1.1 lbs), average fruits were around 300g (10.5 oz).
I harvested 4.7 kg (10.3 lbs) from one bush.
