Quick Summary: Shedevr (Masterpiece)
- 🌍 Origin: A highly regarded commercial variety from the Altai region of Russia. (Note: Do not confuse this with similar-sounding varieties like Slavyanskiy Shedevr or Altayskiy Shedevr). The name translates to “Masterpiece”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, mid-season. It reaches about 1.5 to 1.8 meters (5 to 6 ft) in a greenhouse. The plant is sturdy and compact in its seedling stage, and the mature foliage is well-behaved (not overly bushy or sprawling).
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Perfectly uniform, flat-round red/dark pink fruits. They typically weigh 250-400g (9-14 oz), with some reaching up to 500g (1.1 lbs). They are meaty, heavy for their size, and lack the hard white core or green shoulders often found in commercial types.
- 👅 Flavor: Consistently rated in growers’ “Top 10” lists. It has a rich, sweet, and juicy flavor. If grown in cold, cloudy summers, it retains a pleasant, balanced tanginess.
- 🧺 Storage: While not a dedicated “winter keeper,” its skin is firmer than thin-skinned oxhearts, allowing it to store reasonably well on the counter for fresh eating.
💡 Grower’s Tip: Cold Weather “Tans” & Truss Pruning
The Purple Shoulder Phenomenon: If you grow Shedevr in a climate with cold nights (or experience a sudden cold snap), you might notice the tops of the tomatoes turning dark purple or blue. Do not panic! As Russian growers noted below, this is not a genetic mix-up with a blue tomato. It is a natural stress response where the plant synthesizes anthocyanin to protect itself from the cold.
Truss Management: This variety is a massive yielder and can set up to 9 large fruits on the very first truss. Be careful! If you let the plant carry 2 kg (4.5 lbs) of tomatoes on the bottom truss, it will exhaust itself and skip the second truss entirely. Don’t let greed ruin your harvest—thin out the first truss to ensure consistent production all the way up the vine.
I liked the variety, the fruits are very uniform, fruit weight is 250-350g (9-12 oz). Productive, the taste is very good and sweet.
Alexander, the tomato in the photo is great 👍
I liked it too.
Sasha, whose Shedevr is this? I had Slavyanskiy Shedevr, planted it a long time ago.
Sasha, what is its height?
And has anyone planted Altayskiy Shedevr, is it the same thing?
Quote from Sandr:
I liked the variety, the fruits are very uniform, fruit weight is 250-350g (9-12 oz). Productive, the taste is very good and sweet.
It’s a very good tomato on the cross-section! 👍
It is simply Shedevr, not Slavyanskiy. The seeds are from the Altai region, the height in the greenhouse is already about a meter and a half (5 ft).
It made my Top 10 tastiest tomatoes this year. And the yield is excellent 👍.
Thank you so much to Sasha for the seeds! 🌸
I also liked this variety for its taste and decent yield. The taste wasn’t completely sweet though; it had a good amount of acidity, but maybe that’s because we had very little sun this year 😫. Grew in open ground.
My Shedevr fully lives up to its name (Masterpiece). Indeterminate, mid-season, the fruits are large, heavy, they do not crack, meaty, and can sit on the counter for a while. No green spots at the stem and no white core inside. I am very satisfied with the variety.
Grew in the greenhouse trained to 3 stems. Productive and tasty variety 👍. The fruits are quite large.
A candidate for replanting.
Shedevr grew in the greenhouse, no taller than 1.8m (6 ft). It wasn’t sprawling. In the seedling stage, it stood out from the others, looking sturdier and more compact. Sowed on February 24, it ripened among the very first on June 20. Juicy, sweet, all fruits are uniform, beautiful, and ripened on the bush right up until mid-September. Thank you to ElenaN for the seeds! 🌸 Here is mass ripening, the taste was maintained throughout the entire season.
This is how my Shedevr turned out:
Quote from Drosera:
This is how my Shedevr turned out:
Looking cool 👍. With a tan 😉.
Quote from Drosera:
This is how my Shedevr turned out…
Svetlana! Why do you think it looks like that? From the cold? Or for other reasons? I had a couple of new varieties this year get a “tan” like that during our freezing cold August ???
Quote from ElenaN:
Svetlana! Why do you think it looks like that? From the cold?…
Elena, it could very well be this variety’s (and others’) reaction to the cold—the synthesis of anthocyanin in the fruits. Seedlings react the same way when planted in cold weather by developing purple leaves and stems.
Quote from Drosera:
Elena, it could very well be this variety’s (and others’) reaction to the cold…
Those were my exact thoughts, Svetlana.
Here is my Shedevr from 2015, I could only find these photos for now (couldn’t find a “top view” photo).
Grew in a polycarbonate greenhouse. Indeterminate, well-behaved. The tastiest red in 2015. Yield was average. I will plant it forever.
Large, about 400 grams (14 oz). 👍
Quote from ElenaN:
Those were my exact thoughts, Svetlana…
Elena, yeah. It one hundred percent reacted to such terrible weather.
A good, tasty variety 👍. Indeterminate, grew in the greenhouse trained to 2 stems, fruits are red, up to 500g (1.1 lbs).
Quote from Drosera:
This is how my Shedevr turned out:
LOL 😂 In the past, the sun would activate chlorophyll, resulting in “green spots at the stem,” and now antho activates, “varieties turn blue from the cold,” and we get “blue spots at the stem”! 😂
Colleagues, is Shedevr-1 very different from Shedevr? Has anyone grown it? The seeds seem to be from Kulik. Katrin (Zhavoronok) kindly shared them with me, I want to try it this year.
I grew Shedevr two seasons in a row, ready to repeat. First impression from tasting—a masterpiece! This season it stalled in growth due to the cold, but caught up towards the end of the season. The taste remained excellent 😋
Turns out I didn’t take a good photo in two seasons, only the first one at 120 grams. I recommend it to everyone!
Quote from Plena:
I grew Shedevr two seasons in a row, ready to repeat…
And I repeated it too, wonderful taste, good yield 👍 The seeds were originally from ElenaN marked “Must plant!” 🌸
But this year my Shedevr produced a branched first truss—nine fruits ranging from 200 to 270 grams (7-9.5 oz) each. At first, I was overjoyed and didn’t thin them out. 😉 But I was punished by it skipping the second truss. And only when I picked the bottom fruits did my plant start setting fruit higher up, but it was already too late. I trained it to 1 stem. I see Svetlana trained hers to 2 stems and got 3-4 fruits per truss. In short—greed ruined me! 😄
I liked the variety too. Tasty, productive, the fruits are uniform, perfectly shaped. The color is unusual.
Quote from Nata N.:
I liked the variety too. Tasty, productive, the fruits are uniform, perfectly shaped…
No one writes that it is a long-keeper, but that is exactly why I planted it this year, or is that not true?
Quote from Amina:
No one writes that it is a long-keeper, but that is exactly why I planted it this year…
I didn’t notice that. My “icicle” types store for a long time. But Shedevr definitely stores longer than Oxheart (Bychie Serdtse), which has a very thin skin, but I think it stores less than icicles or varieties meant for drying.
Quote from Nata N.:
I didn’t notice that. My “icicle” types store for a long time. But Shedevr definitely stores longer than Oxheart…
Thank you, that means I mixed something up, but overall did you like it?
Quote from Amina:
Thank you, that means I mixed something up, but overall did you like it?
I think you won’t regret it.
