Quick Summary of Chernyi Medved (Black Bear)
- 🌍 Origin: Originally an American variety, circulating in Russia under the translated name Chernyi Medved (Black Bear). Some Eastern European growers suspect it is a larger-fruited selection or sibling of the Russian commercial variety Negritenok.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Tall indeterminate. Highly vigorous and productive. It can easily support being pruned to multiple stems and boasts excellent disease resistance, keeping the vines healthy until late autumn.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, oblate (flat-round) beefsteaks. They ripen to a beautiful dark purple-pomegranate color with distinct olive-green shoulders. Weights typically range from 200 to 450 g (7–16 oz).
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: The flesh is dense, meaty, and buttery. The flavor is described as sweet with fruity aromatics. While it’s a solid tomato, some hardcore dark-tomato fans feel it is outshined in taste by top-tier black heirlooms, making it more valued for its impressive yield.
- ⏳ Maturity: Mid-season. It has a remarkably long harvest window, often producing fruit right up until the late October frosts.
Chernyi Medved (Black Bear), USA.
Seeds are from V. Redko.
Tall (indeterminate), mid-season. The fruits are oblate, dark purple-pomegranate in color with olive shoulders, weight from 200 to 450 g (7 to 16 oz). The taste is sweet with a fruity aroma, the flesh is dense and buttery. High yield and disease resistance.
It grew in two stems (could have done more), and bore fruit until the end of October. The taste didn’t blow me away (there are better “blacks” out there), I liked it more for its yield. Photos as of July 23, 2016.
Has anyone compared this variety in the same conditions with the Russian ‘Negritenok’?
They seem to be the exact same variety, although it is believed that Black Bear “separated” from Negritenok as a larger-fruited selection.
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