Quick Summary of Serzhant Marli 2020 (Sergeant Marley 2020)
- 🌍 Origin: A highly sought-after, highly productive anthocyanin variety, extremely popular among Russian and Eastern European collectors.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), mostly grown in greenhouses. It is a “heavy feeder” but puts its energy directly into fruit production rather than suffering from excessive vegetative growth (it doesn’t go “all to leaves”). Extremely heavy yielder with massive clusters. The fruit stems are strong enough to hold giant tomatoes without individual support.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Giant beefsteaks! Fruits grow in clusters of up to 5, with individual tomatoes easily reaching over 600g (1.3+ lbs). They are bright red/dark pink with a beautiful, fine dusting of dark purple anthocyanin on the shoulders. Towards the end of the season, the fruits naturally become a bit smaller.
- 👅 Flavor: Superb! It has the rich, complex flavor typical of dark tomatoes, featuring a perfect balance of sweetness and mild acidity. Very meaty with few seeds.
- ⚠️ Growing Tip: Like many large, thin-skinned beefsteaks, it is prone to cracking at the shoulders if subjected to inconsistent, heavy watering (often the case for “weekend gardeners”). However, the cracks scar/heal over nicely and do not rot.
Seeds from Angelina (Domashniy Pomidor).
It amazed me with its yield. There are clusters of 5 fruits weighing 610g (1.34 lbs) each! You walk into the greenhouse and your jaw just drops 😮. They hold perfectly on their stems, I didn’t even have to tie or support the individual tomatoes.
Very tasty, like all dark-skinned varieties. It is not completely dark, of course, it just has blue shoulders, but the taste is excellent. The only “BUT” is that the shoulders cracked on mine—apparently, I watered them too much.
Overall, thank you to Angelinochka.
Excellent variety. The tomatoes are large, beautiful, and meaty, with a magnificent balance of sweetness and acidity.
There are few seeds. It is unpretentious in growing. But it loves to eat (a heavy feeder), yet it doesn’t get “fat” (it pushes fruit rather than excessive vegetative foliage). It grew in a greenhouse. The fruits crack near the stem from heavy watering, but they don’t rot—they scar and heal over. I watered them once a week because I am a weekend gardener.
Huge thanks to Khasib @guzel103 for the seeds.
I liked the variety very much; towards the end of the season, the tomatoes were a bit smaller. The bush is very productive.
The anthocyanin looks like a fine dusting, it looks absolutely superb.
