Mr. Stripey... fuzzy?

[shlacm]

The largest tomato on my Mr. Stripey is about one inch in diameter and is noticeably fuzzy!!! Not fuzzy like a peach, but definitely different from the other 18 varieties I am growing. What's the scoop on this variety anyway? It has a DTM of either 55 or 76, OR 55-76 days?!?!?! It just seems to be an oddball in every respect.

[OneoftheEarls]

What you have is not a Mr. Stripey by virtue of your description. Mr. Stripey (not Tigrella or various spelling thereof) is a yellow beefsteak and is smooth as any other. Grow it out, take photos and repost for a more accurate analysis. Your size and skin are out of place for Mr. Stripey, which is a great sandwich slicer by the way.

Earl

[shlacm]

It's supposed to be the Tigerella Mr. Stripey (that's my conclusion since the tag that came with it said Mr Stripey, Indeterminate, DTM 55). But then, the tomatoes are still babies, so no telling what they may do between now and ripeness.

[carolyn137]

Actually Mr.Stripey is not a pure yellow beefsteak it's a typical gold/red bicolor and one that is not beloved by many due to low production.

But I agree that what you describe is not Mr. Stripey, which was found in the SE by Wayne Hilton, the former owner of TT, Shumways, etc., and at the time he was a big customer of Seeds by Design in CA who sell seeds wholesale and it was named Mr Stripey b'c they had no idea there already was a variety called Mr. Stripey, actually Tigerella a small red with jagged gold stripes, and thus started my campaign trying to distinguish for folks the difference betwen Mr Stripey the large beefsteak bicolor and Mr Stripey the small red with gold jagged stripes, which for me splits with the AM dew and has a taste that's too aggressive for me.

Tigerella, Tangella and Craigella were three varieties that came out of a cross between Aisla Craig and ???? done by the Glasshouse Research Inst in England and I do like the last two, especially Tangella.

[shlacm]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Actually Mr.Stripey is not a pure yellow beefsteak it's a typical gold/red bicolor and one that is not beloved by many due to low production.

But I agree that what you describe is not Mr. Stripey, which was found in the SE by Wayne Hilton, the former owner of TT, Shumways, etc., and at the time he was a big customer of Seeds by Design in CA who sell seeds wholesale and it was named Mr Stripey b'c they had no idea there already was a variety called Mr. Stripey, actually Tigerella a small red with jagged gold stripes, and thus started my campaign trying to distinguish for folks the difference betwen Mr Stripey the large beefsteak bicolor and Mr Stripey the small red with gold jagged stripes, which for me splits with the AM dew and has a taste that's too aggressive for me.

Tigerella, Tangella and Craigella were three varieties that came out of a cross between Aisla Craig and ???? done by the Glasshouse Research Inst in England and I do like the last two, especially Tangella.

So Tigerella and Mr. Stripey are or are not equivalent? Mine is supposed to be the small red with gold stripes. That's about all I know. I take it they aren't supposed to be "fuzzy" at all.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by shlacm

So Tigerella and Mr. Stripey are or are not equivalent? Mine is supposed to be the small red with gold stripes. That's about all I know. I take it they aren't supposed to be "fuzzy" at all.

And now you understand why so much confusion.

In your first post you said just Mr. Stripey and now you say you bought a plant of Mr. Stripey and are assuming it's Tigerella b'c the DTM says 55 days and it's indet., but the DTM for Tigerella is much later than 55 days, it's more in the same range as Mr Stripey the large beefsteak which is about 75-80 days.

Here's some DTM's for Tigerella, aka Mr Stripey, from some folka who list Tigerella in the SSE YEarbook:

MN, 80days
ONT, 90days
ONT 75
TN 55
WI 75

I don't know about that 55 day one which is from Marianne Jones at mariseeds b'c it's way out of whack with all others. Perhaps it['s a typo, perhaps it's for real the season she grew it. When I grew Tigerella it was about a 75 day variety here in my zone 5 which also cooresonds to folks who list it in an earlier Yarbooks. My quotes above were from just one YEarbook and there were some who didn't give a DTM.

OK, let me summarize.

Tigerella was given the nickname Mr. Stripey shortly after it was bred in England.

Wayne Hilton gives seeds for a large gold/red beefsteak to SBD in CA and they put it on their wholesale list as Mr Stripey b'c the don't know about the other MR Stripey, thus spreading confusion everywhere, and it's spread around the country especially at big box stores by wholesale contract growers.

So two Mr. Stripeys, one a nickname for Tigerella, the other a large red/gold bicolor.

But I guess I'm still confused as to why you thought that the plant you bought as Mr. Stripey was really Tigerella? Just b'c of the 55 DTM? Which you now know is an anomoly from the DTM's I posted above.

But the fuzzy business also confuses me as well. Sometimes I get confused easily.

[shlacm]

Here's the best I could get picture-wise. I think perhaps I'm just making something out of nothing re: the fuzziness.

Okay so what I have is Tigerella. I assumed this from the tag because 1) the picture didn't look like a large beefsteak, 2) 55 DTM seems much more reasonable for a smaller sized tomato and 3) I have seen Mr. Stripey/Tigerella listed as 55 DTM, but not so with Mr. Stripey/beefsteak. Of course it seems that 75+ DTM is a much more common DTM for it, which certainly is more in line with what I'm seeing!

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by shlacm

Here's the best I could get picture-wise. I think perhaps I'm just making something out of nothing re: the fuzziness.

Okay so what I have is Tigerella. I assumed this from the tag because 1) the picture didn't look like a large beefsteak, 2) 55 DTM seems much more reasonable for a smaller sized tomato and 3) I have seen Mr. Stripey/Tigerella listed as 55 DTM, but not so with Mr. Stripey/beefsteak. Of course it seems that 75+ DTM is a much more common DTM for it, which certainly is more in line with what I'm seeing!

I didn't realize there was a picture on the tag that showed Tigerella b'c you hadn't mentioned that before.

As to DTM's as I indicated above the 55 day one was an anomoly amongst those DTM's that were much greater.

Your picture suggests to me that you don't have Tigerella b'c that variety is a largish cherry shape about 2 inches across and the stripes are seen as faint green even when the fruits are immature.

The fruit you show is not round it's what's called flattened, or oblate, and I don't see any evdence of any striping.

So right now, despite the picture on the tag and a DTM of 55 days written on the tag it looks to me like what you've got is the large red/gold beefsteak Mr. Stripey.

Time will tell.

Here's some pictures of Tigerella from a Google IMAGES search:

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&s...l=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Can you see the stripes on the very immature one which is the third one down on the right? And the rest of the ripe ones are all round largish cherry shape, no oblate ones.

Hope that helps.

[shlacm]

You can't really tell from the picture, but it does have some faint dark green striping on the top 1/3rd of the tomato. Shape-wise it does look more like Mr Stripey than Tigerella. Only time will tell...

I wish I'd hung onto the tag instead of giving it away with the extra plants! Though, not nearly as much as I wish I'd hung onto the packet that the watermelon seeds came from... or at least written down what the heck they are!

[dice]

It does look faintly fuzzy in your picture. Perhaps a chance cross
between either Tigerella or Mr. Stripey (beefsteak) and some
small-fruited fuzzy variety like Garden Peach? One finds chance
crosses and simply wrong plants that do not match the label
more than one might expect among commercially labelled plants
from wholesale growers.

When you have an odd duck like that, the most important
question is "How is the flavor?" (Followed by questions about
production, days to maturity, and disease tolerance.)

[shlacm]

Thankfully, I bought it "on a whim" so it's not exactly a variety I'm dying to have. If my Opalka, Rowdy Red, etc were not what I expected, I'd be quite upset, lol. But this one, I'm fine with whatever it turns out to be!

[shlacm]

Well, now that more fruit has set I'm convinced that my plant is indeed Mr. Stripey... the beefsteak!!! I've also pretty much convinced myself that I'm delusional in my memory of the tag! I'm thinking that there was not a picture or a DTM and that my brain must have inserted that into my memory from what I looked up online. Memory is an odd thing!