Quick Summary of Sprint-Timer
- 🌍 Origin: A legendary Russian giant heirloom. It gained massive fame when a grower won the 2016 “Minusinsk Tomato Day” (Russia’s famous giant tomato competition) with a Sprint-Timer fruit weighing a whopping 1.878 kg (4.14 lbs)!
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate with thick, robust stems. Typically grows up to 1.5 meters (5 ft) tall. It produces best when pruned to 1 or 2 stems and needs plenty of sunlight—do not let it get shaded out by other vigorous plants.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Colossal red beefsteaks that can be heart-shaped or oblate (flat-round). Average weights range from 300g to 800g (10–28 oz), but reaching over 1 kg (2.2 lbs) is very common. They have thin skin, incredibly dense and meaty flesh, and very few seeds.
- 👅 Flavor: Outstanding, old-fashioned sweet tomato flavor with a rich aroma. Because the skin is thin, it has a short shelf life and should be eaten fresh.
- 💡 Pro Tips: Rain right before harvest can wash out the flavor, making them taste slightly bland. It also recovers amazingly well from stress—if seedlings suffer from “damping off,” you can easily snip the top and root it in water!
Many probably remember the photo from “Cheese Boy” showing absolutely massive tomatoes. Here is the description for Sprint-Timer:
“Bush: up to 1.5m (5 ft). Fruit is red, heart-shaped, intended for fresh salads. Meaty, delicious, very large, weighing up to 1 kg (2.2 lbs) and more.”
The seed seller did not disappoint. Mine didn’t quite reach 1 kg, but on the bush, they were simply enormous. I had weights of 816g, 720g, 710g, and 670g (29, 25, 25, 23.5 oz), plus 2 more still on the vine that look to be around 400g (14 oz). The plant suffered frost damage early on, grew outdoors in open ground, and fruited on the suckers (lateral shoots, I left two of them). Because of that, I will definitely grow it again; getting this kind of yield after such stress is amazing.
But there is one “but” ??? The largest fruit was meaty, sweet, simply a miracle, but the one higher up the vine tasted a bit bland. It’s possible the first one ripened during dry weather, and by the time the next one was ready, our rainy season had started. That might be the reason.
Season 2015:
Girls, besides its size, does it stand out in any other way? Yield, taste? This year, almost all my large-fruited varieties turned out bland and watery.
Mine were around ~800g (28 oz), and they were quite tasty. This was with minimal care and in rather poor soil. However, inside they had hard white cores (veins)—probably lacking some nutrient, or having too much of something. I originally gave up on it because, being the “expert” that I am, I kept mixing it up with Red Oxheart. I should probably try planting it again; I don’t even grow Red Oxheart anymore…
Here is how mine turned out. The seedling almost died, then it got completely shaded out by its much stronger neighbors. As a result, it produced exactly one fruit weighing 850g (30 oz). Right now, it’s trying to bloom again. I saved seeds from it and will repeat it, because it is handsome and delicious, with a nice touch of sweetness. Next time, I just won’t torture the plant so much.
In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, at the annual “Tomato Day” festival in Minusinsk, they chose the largest tomato of 2016.
The winner was Natalya Medvedeva, who grew a “Sprint-Timer” variety tomato weighing an incredible 1 kg 878 g (4.14 lbs)!
I want to plant this variety in 2018. I bought the seeds, but I have a question: is it really worth it if the yield is small? Or does it actually produce a decent crop? I mean, we plant them to harvest food, not just to stare at a couple of fruits, right? I’m not sure if it’s worth the space just for the taste alone. In the reviews, no one really mentions high yields. Let me know if you grew it. I’m sitting here turning the seed packet over in my hands… 🤔
I had 6 fruits on the bush. Their weight ranged from 600g to 900g (21–32 oz). The variety is very impressive. The bush itself is quite vigorous. However, my cucumbers in the greenhouse ended up shading it. The yield probably would have been much better otherwise.
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I had wanted to plant this variety for a long time—I’d read so many good reviews. After receiving seeds from Minusinsk, I sowed it this year. Unfortunately, in late April, my single seedling suffered a disaster: due to the cold nights at the dacha, it collapsed from “damping off” (fungal rot at the stem base).
I cut the top off and re-rooted it in a glass of water, and once the little guy grew roots, I planted it in the greenhouse and pruned it to 2 stems. Of course, it didn’t have time to show its full potential, and its older neighboring plants shaded it out, but it still managed to push out two gigantic, perfectly round, red spheres (weighing about 850g / 30 oz each) with excellent flavor and texture, plus three smaller fruits. Definitely going on the repeat list!
Svetlana said:
Definitely going on the repeat list!
Svetlana, I’m sorry if I’m pestering you with questions… But did you repeat it this year?
Tatiana said:
Svetlana, I’m sorry if I’m pestering you with questions… But did you repeat it this year?
Yes! But I didn’t take any photos. I will probably plant it every single year; it is an excellent workhorse variety. The fruits are huge and delicious. It’s exactly the kind of tomato you always need in the household. The only issue is that it has very few seeds.
Seeds are from E. Gorlova. In my garden (grown outdoors in open ground), it turned out to be a short indeterminate. Red. Oblate (flat-round). But oh, so tasty, and the aroma… The skin is thin, so the tomato doesn’t have a long shelf life. The vast majority of them weighed around 300g (10.5 oz). Yield was average. It’s definitely going on the seed-sowing list for next year, it was just too delicious. The only thing that confuses me is that it was supposed to be heart-shaped, but mine were oblate.
