Quick Summary of Family Variety from Zurab Kukhianidze
- 🌍 Origin & History: An authentic old Georgian family heirloom. The 15-year-old seeds were originally saved by the father of a forum member’s husband (Zurab Kukhianidze) in Georgia. The Russian tomato community successfully germinated these old seeds, saved the strain from extinction, and affectionately nicknamed it “Zurabchik”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. Pro Tip: Do not panic at the seedling stage! Growers note that as seedlings, they look very small, weak, and resemble determinate/bush varieties. However, once planted out, they explode into powerful, vigorous vines that can easily reach 2 meters (6.5 ft) tall.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Massive, pleated/ribbed beefsteaks with “chubby cheeks” (fleshy shoulders). They are very heavy, with growers regularly pulling fruits weighing 600-800g (1.3-1.7 lbs).
- 🎨 Color Variation: Because the seeds were so old and had been adapting, the initial grow-outs produced both Red and Raspberry-Pink fruits. Both are delicious, but the community generally prefers and selects seeds from the Pink/Raspberry strain as it produces larger, more robust fruits.
- 👅 Flavor: Described as the “taste of childhood”—a rich, intense, sweet, and classic southern tomato flavor.
Next season, many forum members, and not only them… in our country and far beyond its borders, will be growing this old, Georgian family variety. Its seeds were carefully saved by our Nelli 🌺🌺🌺, and after consulting with her, we decided to add this variety to our Catalog.
Seeds of this variety from Georgia, from the family of Zurab Kukhianidze, were sent to me at the end of February this year… sown for seedlings on February 28th.
I grew it in closed ground conditions, in a polycarbonate greenhouse, in the sunniest spot. 4 plants were planted out.
Vigorous, powerful bushes with large, dark foliage; I pruned each to 2 stems. I didn’t limit the growth of the main shoots or pinch the growing points until the end of the season… At the end of the season, the plants were about 2 m (6.5 ft) tall…
Based on the results of the first year of growing, we can conclude that the variety is characterized by high rates of disease resistance, but is quite demanding of good agricultural practices. It is a mid-season ripening variety (in my conditions).
The fruits are all large, oblate, very meaty, with a rich, intense flavor of real southern tomatoes.
Nelli correctly defined this taste (THE TASTE OF CHILDHOOD!)
The full potential of the variety has not yet been fully studied, I will definitely test it in the coming years )))
We will be glad to see your results of growing this variety from different regions next year! 🌺🌺🌺
Edited November 14, 2016 by Yaroslavna
I understand your excitement, but do you think such a conversation is appropriate in the official catalog?
And not everyone welcomes the appearance of “family” (unregistered) varieties in the catalog 🤐.
Quote by Drosera:
I understand your excitement, but do you think such a conversation is appropriate in the official catalog? And not everyone welcomes the appearance of “family” (unregistered) varieties in the catalog 🤐.
I think this variety is destined for the same popularity as ‘Rozovye Krupnye from Ninulia’, ‘Verkiny’, and ‘Malinovyy Trufel from Galya-64’. I would leave it in the catalog. After all, not all family varieties make it here, only those that are especially famous on the forum and which everyone constantly asks about, requesting to “point them where they can read about it” 😄
Quote by Drosera:
…not everyone welcomes the appearance of “family” varieties in the catalog.
Why isn’t it the place? This is our forum catalog, not the State Registry! Whatever we grow is what we enter into the catalog. Of course, it’s necessary to maintain variety purity and names, but there are exceptions to the rules! And family heirloom varieties are no worse than State Registry ones; there should be descriptions of them, the information must be stored somewhere. Or we need a separate catalog: “Family Heirloom Varieties of the Forum”.
OK, let it stay, if anyone doesn’t like it — that’s their problem, let them not read it.
I’ll clean up the excess chatter later.
Natasha, what color is it — red or pink?
From the tags for “Zurabchik”, one bush grew with pure red fruits weighing 300-500g (10-17 oz), very productive 👍, and the other with pink ones; the first fruit was very huge 😳, the rest were about 300-400g (10-14 oz).
I must have mixed something up somewhere, we need to figure this out 😳
Edited September 12, 2017 by Svetikk
Quote by Svetikk:
Natasha, what color is it — red or pink? …I must have mixed something up somewhere, we need to figure this out 😳
Sveta, I didn’t mix it up — I only had one plant grow out of the 2 seeds I sowed. Judging by the photos, I was expecting something dark, but they came out pink. However, over time the color darkens a bit and becomes closer to raspberry. But you can identify them without any problems by their shape — round, large beefsteaks, flattened at the bottom and top, and still a bit ribbed. Or rather, with large gentle waves.
And I gave the pink ones to my neighbor 😫, and saved the red ones for seeds — I looked at Natasha’s photo with the scale, and the tag says “red large” 🙄
Svetik, Ninulya, last year it was the same for me, there were bushes with red fruits and with pink-raspberry ones… I took seeds specifically from the raspberry-colored fruits, which I sent out to everyone. The original seeds did sit around for almost 15 years after all 📝
And this year, even on the same plant, I got fruits of different colors — both dark raspberry and carmine red 😲
Perhaps it’s still the influence of growing conditions, variety sensitivity…
It might manifest one year and be absent the next. Well, this summer goes without saying — nothing but surprises!
So I should take seeds from the pink one? That will be our Zurabchik?
I ran to the greenhouse, there are 4 small fruits hanging on the pink one, so all is not lost yet 😄
Why didn’t I ask earlier? 😫
But the yield of the red one is wow! 😳 and they are all large, even, round, the taste is very good. The bush, shape, and number of fruits differ from the pink one. Eh, it’s a pity that this comrade is now nameless.
On my monitor, the color of the grass in the first photo looks bluer than natural, perhaps the color rendering is distorted, hence the pink look. The second photo conveys the “blue-yellow” balance more accurately, the tomato is red.
In Akhatov’s classification (famous Russian agronomist), pink-fruited tomatoes have clear skin, and red-fruited ones have yellow skin. What kind of skin does Zurabchik have? If it varies, we can supplement the variety name with the color and grow both.
Edited September 13, 2017 by Zulfiya
Svet, just name it Nezurabchik (Not-Zurabchik) 😄
Girls, I’m clarifying once again and don’t want to mislead anyone ))) The seeds from Nelli came with a note — seeds from Zurab Kukhianidze, red… accordingly, the same tag was hung on the plants 📝 The plants eventually produced both red fruits and pink-raspberry ones…
I collected my seeds from the raspberry-colored fruits, those plants were stronger, more productive, and the fruits were all large, there were no small ones at all…
This season the exact same thing happened, fruits of different colors appeared, and not just for me 📝
In the very first post, I wrote that the full potential of the variety has not yet been fully studied, it should continue to be observed and evaluated…
Zulfiya suggested this variant — “from Zurab Kukhianidze, red” and “from Zurab Kukhianidze, pink”. Maybe that’s right? 🙂
But, every year, I will nevertheless collect seeds specifically from the raspberry-colored fruits and continue to observe it 🌺
