Burye

Beefsteak tomato. Gorgeous red-brown skin with shoulders that unevenly mature from green to purple. Indeterminate growth habit with regular leaves. Tendency to split in the field in 2023. Fruit borne in clusters of 2-5. Market mature fruit measure 2.4-3" long, 2.8-4.2" wide, and weigh 6.7-12.8oz. Striking red-purple flesh is tart and sweet with a smooth, meaty texture. Moderate vigor and productivity when grown in 2023 at Heritage Farm. This is one of several Soviet-era varieties that Debbie Premus (OH PR D2) of Lebanon, Ohio, has stewarded for the past 30 years. Debbie received the seeds as gifts from Irina Bagmout during a trip Debbie made to the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Debbie is a second-generation Slav-American and during her college years, became interested in learning about her ancestors’ culture and studied Russian. Coincidentally, she met Valery Bagmout, a Soviet citizen who was taking part in the 1989 “Global Walk for a Livable World” across the US. This walk made a stop in her hometown, and Debbie and Valery became close friends. He invited her to visit him and his family in Moscow in the summer of 1991. During this trip, Valery’s mother, Irina, learned that Debbie had an interest in gardening and seed saving, so she put together a package of seeds from varieties she grew in her dacha in the city of Bryansk, about 400 km SW of Moscow. Debbie later donated the varieties to SSE in 2021. SSE Accession # 133879