Viagra Tomato Variety: Reviews, Yield & Photos

The plant is very vigorous, beautiful, practically a tree. Indeterminate. The first fruit truss appears after the 11th leaf, and subsequent ones every 3 leaves. Up to 9 fruits per truss, averaging 3-3.5 oz (80-100 g) each. The trusses don’t require support; they hold up on their own.

Classic tomato flavor with a slight tang/tartness. It’s highly recommended to let the tomatoes hang on the vine to ripen for as long as possible. The fruits have thick walls, are dense and juicy.

An unproblematic variety, sets fruit very well, and is resistant to Late Blight (Phytophthora). The breeder (Gavrish) advises pruning to a single stem, but I ended up with 2 stems. The suckers were so thick and powerful I just couldn’t bring myself to snap them off, and I don’t regret it. I think you could easily leave even more stems because the plant is just that strong.

Marina, is it good for canning/pickling? Does it crack?

Galina P. wrote:
Marina, is it good for canning/pickling? Does it crack?

Very firm and sturdy 👍 and exactly the right size for it.

Marina wrote:
Very firm and sturdy 👍 and exactly the right size for it.

Don’t tease me… 🙂

Galina P. wrote:
Don’t tease me… 🙂

And 40 fruits per plant 🙈

Marina wrote:
And 40 fruits per plant 🙈

Seriously????

I didn’t get 40 fruits, but otherwise, I agree with Marina. The plant is sturdy, beautiful, and disease-resistant. However, the tomatoes seemed a bit watery/runny to me. Haven’t tried it for canning – I do all my quart jars using cocktail tomatoes or cherries.

I have the seeds now too, will try it next year. 👍 Looks great, good reviews. Just perfect! 🌸

Our local commercial greenhouse complex grows this variety. I figure it must be a heavy yielder, otherwise, they wouldn’t grow it on an industrial scale. I left a tomato to ripen fully indoors to save seeds, will plant it next year.

Before I joined this forum, I didn’t even suspect varieties like “Viagra” existed. Now I want it so bad just because of the name 🙂

Svetlana, I’ve learned a lot thanks to this forum too. I can share some seeds, just promise not to throw tomatoes at me if it goes wrong—the seeds are untested, saved from a store-bought tomato. We’ll experiment together.

Planted it last year and liked it. The yield was decent, but most importantly, the color is unusual. And I won’t even mention the name 🎉…

Well, I ended up planting Viagra after all 🙂 but taste-wise, the tomato didn’t show anything special.

Sveta, are they red? 😲 This is a “black” tomato. Or is the color distorted in the photo?

tomatinka wrote:
Sveta, are they red? 😲 This is a “black” tomato. Or is the color distorted in the photo?

They turned out blood-black (mahogany) for me, the color in the picture just isn’t accurate.

This year, my 2 plants froze at first and barely set any fruit. Then the blossoms dropped because of the extreme heat. I practically gave up on them. But then, when conditions normalized, they just took off growing… blooming and setting fruit. For some reason, all my indeterminates fork naturally, so I leave 2 stems. They grew to almost 10 ft (3 m), I had to tie them to the greenhouse roof.

The fruits are not large, somewhat oblong. The color differs from Gypsy (Tsygan) or Black Prince because instead of brownish-pink, they are more brownish-green, definitely not red. Taste seemed average to me, poor shelf life. Didn’t try canning them.

I planted it purely for the name, obviously… 100% germination rate. The plant is sturdy, not sprawling, and tall. But it’s not for me. Had the absolute worst taste out of all my dark/black varieties—not meaty, a bit too sour, and yield was nothing special. Plus, it’s clearly not meant for Siberia; it set a lot of fruit but just didn’t have time to ripen… It was disease-free, though. Won’t be planting it again.

Also planted it for the name 🙈 Grown outdoors, gave an average yield. The tomatoes didn’t crack and didn’t catch diseases. Actually, I’ve noticed that brown and yellow varieties handle our cold, damp Northern weather almost painlessly, while the reds and pinks rot universally. But the taste of Viagra was absolutely bland as cardboard. 😞

Viagra performed very well for me. The fruits are large, up to 10.5 oz (300 g). It’s a meaty slicer variety.

Tasted just like grass/cardboard. Didn’t like it. Although the plant itself is beautiful.

The exact same variety from different seed companies can differ in taste and even shape.

Di wrote:
The exact same variety from different seed companies can differ in taste and even shape.

I saw the photos of your Viagra, my tomato looked different. My seeds were either from Gavrish or Poisk, I don’t remember.

Di wrote:
The exact same variety from different seed companies can differ in taste and even shape.

In the case of “Viagra”, there shouldn’t be different seed companies: the variety was registered in 2008, meaning it’s fairly new. There is only one official originator – “Gavrish”.

Di wrote:
Viagra performed very well for me. The fruits are large, up to 10.5 oz (300 g). It’s a meaty slicer variety.

You clearly have some other variety (an off-type), which is obvious from your photos.

Description from the State Register:
Fruits ripen 112 days after emergence. Indeterminate plant. Leaves are medium-sized, dark green. Simple inflorescence. The fruit is flat-round, firm, slightly ribbed. Unripe color is green with dark green shoulders, ripe color is red. Number of locules: 3-4. Fruit weight: 3.8 oz (108 g). Taste is good.

From the description on the Gavrish seed packet:
Fruits are flat-round, slightly ribbed, brown/mahogany colored, with thick skin, weighing 3.9 oz (110 g). Sweet flesh with rich flavor and strong aroma.

My variety was from Gavrish. And from what I understand, fruit weight depends heavily on agronomy/feeding. All my peppers and eggplants were also much heavier than what was written on the seed packets. If they are grown with plenty of space, enough nutrition, and no shading, why wouldn’t they grow bigger? The fruit is flat-round, slightly ribbed, and brownish/mahogany when fully ripe. Sweet flesh, rich taste, and strong aroma.

Sveta, things aren’t perfectly stable with this variety. The first year I planted from the original Gavrish packet – they looked like Marina’s from Sochi. But in 2014, I planted from my own saved seeds, and the fruits were much more elongated (closer to an oval shape) and denser. Taste differences can be chalked up to weather and location.

This year I planted store-bought seeds again and saved seeds from them. I’ll try again next year.

But I also haven’t seen any brand producing it other than Gavrish.

Tanya, sure, taste differences can be chalked up to weather. But no one has actually written that Viagra is delicious. And if the State Register describes the taste merely as “good,” it usually means it’s quite mediocre. And yet here we have someone getting large, meaty, slicer tomatoes 🤷‍♀️. I’ve been staring at these packets in stores for several years, but whenever I remember the forum reviews, the desire to buy them vanishes 🙈

Yeah Sveta, it’s very hard to call Viagra a “slicer” variety 😂

It’s better grown for juicing. The plant is fairly disease-resistant and yields abundantly. The taste is just an ordinary tomato flavor, although you can definitely find better varieties for juicing 😉

This year the weather wasn’t good for tomatoes at all. Everyone praises Rozovyi Myod (Pink Honey), but in the exact same greenhouse, it performed terribly. Beautiful on the outside, but inside it was nothing but hard white cores/veins—impossible to eat or juice. I’ll plant it again next year and report back on how it behaves.

Planted it in 2015. Mid-early, pinkish-brown, tasty little 10.5 oz (300 g) tomatoes. Pruned to 1 and 2 stems, reached 5.2 ft (1.6 m) tall, got 13 fruits per plant. Repeating it in 2016.

Repeated it this year from a fresh Gavrish packet. The result is exactly the same as last year. In my heavy clay soil, it’s a completely normal slicer tomato. Me and all my friends love the taste. Fruit weight from 8.8 to 12.3 oz (250 to 350 g). It didn’t get sick at all, even during this rotten, damp summer in the Leningrad Region.

Diana, I completely agree. Seeds from Gavrish, repeating it, very happy with the variety. Mine looks exactly like that. Clay soil. I have Black Prince growing right next to it, and it loses to Viagra in both yield and taste (Viagra is juicier).

For me, the taste of Viagra was good, but it still lost to Black Prince.