📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Bychye Serdtse Beloye (White Oxheart)
- 🌍 Origin: A Russian/Eastern European strain of the classic White Oxheart. Note: Like almost all “white” tomatoes, it is not pure paper-white; it ripens to a pale lemon-yellow or ivory, sometimes developing a slight pinkish blush or orange marbling at the blossom end when fully ripe.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, but generally manageable (averaging around 1.5–1.6 m / 5 ft). It features classic oxheart traits: wispy, drooping, somewhat wimpy-looking foliage with relatively short internodes.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Medium-to-large, pale ivory-yellow hearts, typically weighing 100–300g (3.5–10.5 oz). Very meaty with few seeds.
- 👅 Flavor: Highly divisive! White tomatoes are notorious for lacking acidity. Growers who give them plenty of sun report an incredibly sweet, delicate, jelly-like (marmalade) flavor with hints of fruit. However, in cooler/shadier conditions, or if ripened indoors, many growers complain they taste entirely bland and washed out.
I am very happy with this variety 👍. The color is closer to lemon-yellow. My seeds came from Ruslan Sirotin.
To be fair, the germination rate was terrible. Out of five seeds sown, only two barely sprouted, and one of those kicked the bucket shortly after 😢. The surviving one grew quite well and was planted out in my hoop-house on May 5. It was one of the very first to start setting fruit.
I pruned it to two main stems. It didn’t throw out too many suckers, and the height stayed under 1.6m (5 ft). The trusses had 4-5 medium-sized fruits each. The plant isn’t overly wimpy, it’s sturdy enough but has sparse foliage. Tomato weights ranged from 100g to 250g (3.5-9 oz). Some fruits are completely seedless, while others have a normal amount of seeds.
To me, the flavor is extremely good—almost jelly-like (marmalade-like), but only if it fully ripens on the vine. If you pick it early and let it ripen indoors, the flavor degrades and becomes rather bland. The very first fruit I tasted fresh off the vine only had three seeds inside; it was amazingly tender, delicate, sweet, with a light tomato aroma. I will definitely be planting it again.
My White Oxheart seeds were from Solana. I grew it outdoors in open ground (like everything else). It’s an indet, but the internodes were quite short, so the bushes stayed fairly compact. The foliage has a grayish tint to it. Mid-season. Average yield. For my taste—it was too bland.
I just picked 3 somewhat soft fruits, but they don’t look white-yellow at all; they are blushing white-pink. There is absolutely no yellow tint to them. Is this normal, or should I consider my plant an off-type (crossed seed)?
I was pruning leaves today and didn’t want to leave them on the vine any longer—the truss was buried in the second row, resting on the dirt, and I was terrified they would rot. The fruits aren’t large, they’re heavily deformed, and feel soft to the touch. I’ll let them sit on the counter to see if the color changes. But is a pinkish blush without any yellow even possible for this variety?
I got my seeds from Galina (Esme). I didn’t like the taste at all: too bland. The color was pale yellow with zero hints of pink. But to be fair, the plant ended up growing in the shade, so maybe that caused all the above issues. The bush was medium height and very wimpy. Large fruits, average yield. I dropped it from my grow list.
Quote from elsa30:
The bush was medium height and very wimpy. Large fruits, average yield. I dropped it from my grow list.
Exactly the same experience here—a very wimpy plant, 250-300g fruits, and the taste was completely bland for me last year. Because of the poor flavor, I chose not to repeat it.
I grew White Oxheart in the greenhouse. For me, it was highly productive and reached about 1.5 meters (5 ft) tall. The fruits were heart-shaped, light yellow, large, and had an excellent taste—sweet, meaty, and aromatic. It matured mid-season.
I absolutely loved White Oxheart! Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much because I’ve always had a slight prejudice against “white” varieties. But it turned out to be productive, delicious, and beautiful. I definitely want to repeat it. 👍
The fruits look absolutely stunning when you let them get slightly overripe—they develop these little orange specks/marbling, which you can clearly see in the cross-section photo.
