H-34 Rot (Belle Coeur) Tomato

Grew this one in 2015. Seeds from Kulik (Ukraine).

Plant specs: Mid-season, sturdy, tidy little vine. Fuss-free and barely throws any suckers.
Fruit set: didn’t drop a single blossom.
Grew it outside. By mid-August it hit 5 ft (1.5m), and by early September it was about 5.2 ft (1.6m) and still producing.
Trusses hold 6-8 tomatoes.
Overall yield: high.

The fruit: Round with a distinct sharp point on the blossom end. Inky dark when green, blushing red from the point upwards as it ripens. Insanely beautiful (!).
Firmness: medium.
Flavor: has a nice fruity note to it. Very delicious, juicy, zero tartness. I rarely rate things this high, but the sweetness is an easy 5/5!!!

First impression: A versatile and absolutely gorgeous tomato! Seedling rating: 5, Plant: 5++, Fruit: 5+++, Overall rating: 5+++. A new favorite in my garden!!!

Edited September 17, 2015 by Drosera

Grew this in 2015. Seeds from Kulik (Ukraine).

Plant specs: Mid-early, super versatile, and just a gorgeous sturdy plant. Indet.
Fruit set: didn’t skip a beat, still producing.
Height by early August was about 5 ft (1.5m), and it pretty much topped out there.
Trusses hold 7-8 fruits, very dense and fantastically beautiful.
Overall yield: high.

The fruit: Round with a sharp point, inky black fading into a yellow/red transition starting from the tip. Very pretty.
Firmness: high.
Flavor: rich, mouth-coating, meaty but juicy. Great balance, sweetness is a solid 5. Actually has more spice and fruitiness to it than the red strain.

First impression: Insanely beautiful, versatile tomato. The beauty shows up right from the seedling stage (was one of my tallest and tidiest starts under lights). The plant is incredibly low-maintenance, barely throws suckers. Very easy to prune and train (at 5 ft tall it practically supports itself!!!). The fruit is sweet and tasty. A favorite!!!
Seedling rating: 5, Plant: 5+, Fruit: 5+, Overall: 5+++.

And here is a comparison with the H-34 Rot red version:

Alena, you mentioned that H-34 Rot doesn’t just exist in a yellow version, but a red one too. Is this just an unstable line segregating, or are they totally different varieties? I thought Kulik only listed one version in his catalog.

Lana wrote:
Alena, you mentioned that H-34 Rot doesn’t just exist in a yellow version, but a red one too. Is this just an unstable line segregating, or are they totally different varieties? I thought Kulik only listed one version.

I’m guessing it’s just a line that isn’t fully stable yet. Otherwise, it would have been given a catchier name by now. So we’re basically just seeing mutations/off-types and we get the chance to pick the lines we like and keep growing them out.

Lana wrote:
Alena, you mentioned that H-34 Rot doesn’t just exist in a yellow version, but a red one too. Is this just an unstable line segregating…

Lana, I actually know that H-34 comes in three colors: yellow, red, and pink.

I bought the RED seeds; Kulik didn’t even have the yellow listed in his spring 2015 catalog.

I’m hoping I just got a lucky unlisted yellow off-type in my pack.

Of course, we’ll probably never know the real truth. Though I totally admit it could just be segregating.

Hey folks, I went ahead and merged the threads for H-34 Rot red/yellow. Since this cross is going to keep segregating, opening a brand new thread for every single shape and color is a bit overkill.

Around here, private seed vendors are pushing this under the names Orange Purple and Belle Coeur (H-34 Gelb) as an established variety. My biggest fruit was 3.5 oz (100g), the rest were smaller. All of them had the little points on the blossom end, and they take forever to ripen. The flavor of the very first fruit I picked tasted like straight-up nightshade, so much acid. Later on the flavor improved — a delicate tartness and a bit of sugar. The plant stayed under 30 inches (80 cm), and total yield was about 3 lbs (1.5 kg), no more than that. We got a ton of sun this year, so the fruits were 80% black.

I had two kinds of plants pop up, RL and PL (regular and potato leaf), but they produced identical tomatoes. They’re still fruiting under poly right now. So, segregation of a hybrid, or just an unstable variety?

How can it be a stable variety if it’s throwing both RL and PL plants?

There’s no such thing as an “unstable” variety: any true variety is homozygous (meaning the genes that determine its traits are locked in). Homozygous lines give you uniformity when self-pollinated. Heterozygous lines (i.e., hybrids) will always segregate.

Drosera wrote:
Hey folks, I went ahead and merged the threads for H-34 Rot red/yellow…

No problem at all. I was actually thinking about asking you to combine them myself.

Drosera wrote:
How can it be a stable variety if it’s throwing both RL and PL plants?

Well, it’s pretty obvious from the name alone that it’s not a set variety yet, just a working breeder name. Folks are going to use this starting material to select lines — some will pick the yellow, some the red — and work on stabilizing them.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Drosera

Here is how mine turned out… Grew it in-ground. Started ripening really late, second half of August. Didn’t exactly blow me away with the flavor, but it’s definitely a looker. Thanks for the seeds! 😁

Edited November 26, 2015 by Drosera

I started my H-34 Rot seeds pretty late, but it still managed to give me a decent harvest out in the greenhouse. Foliage was PL, height hit about 5 ft (1.5m). The flavor, like a lot of the antho varieties, is fruity and exotic. The tomatoes are sweet and meaty.

Grew it outside in the dirt. It was late and honestly, I just don’t get the hype. Wasn’t impressed by either the flavor or the disease resistance. 🙁 But I’ll give it another try in 2017 😉

Can someone tell me if it’s a wispy vine or a sturdy one?

I’m super tight on space. Thinking about planting two to a hole right next to each other and pruning them to a single leader.

Mine was pretty wispy, didn’t push out too many suckers, you could definitely say it was very low-maintenance. Wonder how it grew for everyone else.

RL foliage, by the way. Seeds were from Alena in Ukraine.

Grew this for the first time this year. Kept one plant for myself, gave the second one to my mom (we live in different cities). Very pretty, tall. The flavor of the early fruits wasn’t impressive, and my mom said they were meh, kind of empty.

But time passed… late July into early August, I picked a tomato and popped it straight in my mouth… and was blown away. Delicious, sweet, and something else, super unique. Anyway, I let my whole family try it and everyone absolutely loved it (mom too). Mine is growing in the greenhouse in the sunniest spot, and it set so much fruit…

H-34 Rot, red and yellow. Very cute variety, grew two vines in-ground. The sun brought out so much antho that the fruits turned almost completely dark blue, nobody believed they were actually tomatoes 😁 Weight 1 to 2 oz (30-50g), firm, sweet, tasty! Indets, best to run them to 3 leaders.