📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Vazhnaya Persona F1 (VIP)
- 🌍 Origin: A Russian commercial F1 hybrid bred by the well-known breeder L.A. Myazina. The name translates to “Important Person” or “VIP”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit (The Height Mystery): Determinate. There is a funny discrepancy discussed in this thread: the seed packet claims it’s a micro-dwarf staying under 16 inches (40 cm), while the breeder’s own website says it reaches up to 5 feet (150 cm) in a greenhouse! Real-world outdoor growers confirm it stays very short, compact, and trouble-free, topping out around 16-20 inches (40-50 cm).
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Red, oblate (flat-round), firm slicing tomatoes. Very uniform, usually weighing around 5.3-5.6 oz (150-160 g).
- ⏳ Maturity & Resilience: Super early. It is highly praised for being one of the very first tomatoes to ripen in the open ground, even during lousy, cold, and wet summers. Advertised as highly resistant to Late Blight.
- 👅 Flavor: It has your standard, reliable commercial hybrid flavor. Not a gourmet heirloom by any means, but it’s an absolute workhorse of a plant that will give you early red tomatoes when nothing else is ripening.
Description from the seed packet: Super early hybrid for open ground and hoop houses. Mass fruit set in the open ground in the North-West region occurs around July 2-5, and by August 2-6 you get 3 fully ripe, red trusses. A single plant forms up to 32 fully developed fruits, weighing 5.3-5.6 oz (150-160 g). Shows resistance to Late Blight. The plant is non-rugose (regular leaf), compact, determinate, 14-16 inches (35-40 cm) tall. Forms 3-4 simple trusses out in the open dirt. There are 5-8 fruits per truss. The fruit is oblate (flat-round), firm, and red colored.
Photo credit: Aljonka
Description from my seed packet:
Vazhnaya Persona F1
The plant is non-rugose, compact, determinate, 14-16 inches (35-40 cm) tall. Out in the open ground it sets 3-4 simple trusses. 5-8 fruits per truss. Fruit is flat-round, firm, red colored. If all growing recommendations are followed, the yield is 6.6-7.7 lbs (3.0-3.5 kg) per truss.
Sow seeds for transplants no earlier than the second half of April. Plant seedlings out in the open dirt after June 10th.
Super early hybrid for open ground and hoop houses.
Mass fruit set in the North-West region occurs July 2-5, fully red by August 2-6. One plant forms up to 32 fully developed fruits weighing 5.3-5.6 oz (150-160 g). Shows resistance to Late Blight.
The original breeder of this hybrid is L.A. Myazina.
The fruits are beautiful and tasty. Not all of them are in the photo. I already picked a bunch of ripe ones. I pruned it to 4 main stems. Practically didn’t pinch the suckers at all. The hybrid really made me happy. Even during our lousy, wet, and cold summer. I’ll definitely plant it again next year.
Karamel wrote:
Description from my seed packet: The original breeder of this hybrid is L.A. Myazina.
The fruits are beautiful and tasty.
The hybrid really made me happy. Even during our lousy, wet, and cold summer. I’ll definitely plant it again next year.
Was it really only 16-20 inches (40-50 cm) tall?
On Myazina’s official website, the height is listed as: “Determinate plant (limited growth), vigorous, 31-43 inches (80-110 cm) in open ground, 55-59 inches (140-150 cm) in a greenhouse, medium foliage.”
Edited February 4, 2016 by Drosera
It was somewhere around 16-20 inches (40-50 cm). I didn’t measure it exactly. But you can clearly see the bush height in the photo… 😉
I grew Vazhnaya Persona from the BioTekhnika seed company out in the open dirt with zero cover. I sowed the seeds early, in the beginning of March. By the time I planted them out on May 9th, I had to up-pot them into 1-gallon (3 L) containers.
It was the very first one to start ripening among all my outdoor tomatoes – early July. The variety is completely trouble-free. I pruned the suckers just like I do with all my det (determinate) plants, only up to the first flower cluster. After that, I just let the biggest stems grow. I can’t really judge its resistance to Late Blight (ФФ), because I sprayed all my outdoor tomatoes with fungicides anyway. As a result, I didn’t have any Late Blight.
The taste is your standard commercial hybrid flavor. I won’t be planting it again this year. I just have way too many other varieties that I need to test out.
Edited February 4, 2016 by TanyaK
