📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): De Barao Rozovyi (Pink De Barao)
- 🌍 Origin: A classic Russian commercial heirloom, part of the famous, cold-tolerant De Barao tomato family.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. A massive, highly vigorous vine that easily reaches the roof of a greenhouse. Requires aggressive pruning.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Pink, plum-shaped paste tomatoes, usually featuring a distinct little “beak” at the blossom end. They weigh about 1.8-2.8 oz (50-80 g).
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Sweet, firm, and meaty. Because they hold their shape exceptionally well, they are considered top-tier for canning in jars.
- ⚠️ Grower Warning: The commercial seed market for this variety is notoriously messy. Buying from major seed packers (like Gavrish or Aelita) often results in round, red off-types.
Pink De Barao, my seeds were from the “SeDek” company. It’s a massive, vigorous indeterminate. I grew 2 bushes in the greenhouse. The fruits came out with a little beak on the end, they were very beautiful and tasty, weighing around 1.8-2.5 oz (50-70 grams). A few of them did crack. My yield was average, mostly because they were growing in light shade.
Edited January 29, 2015 by Drosera
Svetik, did you can them?
Quote from Galina P.:
Svetik, did you can them?
Yes, they were delicious 😋
I don’t have any seeds left, unfortunately. Back in 2012, I rarely saved my own seeds – that was before I discovered this forum 🤭
And here is my Pink De Barao.
This past season I grew Pink De Barao with the beak (from SeDek) again. I just loved it so much – it’s beautiful and tasty in all forms (fresh or canned) 👍 The yield was good, mid-season maturity, and the taste has a very noticeable sweetness 😋 Average weight is 2.5-2.8 oz (70-80 g).
I’m looking at the photos above, and I’m once again convinced that the seed packet I bought had the wrong seeds in it. Is this really Pink De Barao? 😕
Quote from Julia M:
I’m looking at the photos above… Is this really Pink De Barao? 😕
Mine are completely different. What you have is probably a seed mix-up (off-type).
Quote from Julia M:
Is this really Pink De Barao? 😕
It’s an off-type for sure. A few years ago I planted this variety from a store-bought packet, and exact same tomatoes grew – just like in your photo, perfectly round and red.
What a shame 😞
I am just so “lucky” with De Barao off-types. 😫 Here is my latest Pink De Barao (from the “Gavrish” company):
Could someone please tell me what is going on with my Pink De Barao? Seeds are from the “Aelita” Agrofirm. They grew into tall bushes, I’m pruning them to a single stem outdoors. The bottom leaves have already been pruned off, but on the leaves that are now acting as the new “bottom” leaves, suckers are literally sprouting directly out of the leaf surface! On one bush, the flower truss literally terminates into a leafy sucker.
I wanted to cut it off, but the weather won’t let me. It’s like monsoon season here. Constant humidity, I’m afraid if I cut it, it will just rot. I read that suckers growing out of flower trusses happen when a plant is “bull-heading” (suffering from vegetative overload / too much nitrogen). But why would they sprout directly out of the leaves? And why would it even be bull-heading? I sprayed it once with “Siyaniye-1” after transplanting, and a bit later sprinkled some “Siyaniye-2” on the soil surface, and I haven’t fertilized it since. I assume it might be because of the new garden bed (nothing grew there before except grass) and some ash from a bonfire that got mixed in last autumn. What do you guys think?
Thank you for the answer!
Suckers on Leaves & Trusses: Olga asks why her De Barao is growing suckers directly out of the flat part of the leaves and the tips of the flower trusses! While she assumes it’s from “bull-heading” (excess nitrogen), this is actually a known genetic quirk of the De Barao family and a few other highly vigorous Russian heirlooms. When these massive vines are aggressively pruned to a single stem, the plant’s survival instinct kicks into overdrive. If it has no armpits left to grow normal suckers from, it will literally mutate its own leaves and flower trusses to force new vegetative growth!
