📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Aly Mustang (Scarlet Mustang)
- 🌍 Origin: A commercial Siberian variety released by the Siberian Garden (SibSad) seed company. The name translates to “Scarlet Mustang.”
- 📈 Expectation vs. Reality: The seed packet promises giant 20–25 cm (8–10 inch) cigar-shaped fruits and 5 kg (11 lbs) yields per plant. In reality, most growers report 11–15 cm (4.5–6 inch) fruits and below-average yields (2.5–3.5 kg / 5.5–7.7 lbs).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (up to 1.8m / 6 ft). Features classic paste-tomato “wispy foliage” (thin, lacy, and drooping leaves). Some growers note massive internode gaps where the plant simply refuses to set fruit in the middle of the vine.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Red, elongated, sausage-like paste tomatoes with a pointed beak. They are very meaty with very little juice or seeds inside.
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Highly controversial. While a few love the taste, the consensus is that it is quite bland for fresh eating. However, its dense texture makes it an absolutely top-tier variety for whole-fruit canning and jar preservation.
- ⚠️ Warning: Several growers reported receiving unstable seeds (off-types) directly from the manufacturer, resulting in wrong plant types (determinate) or incorrect fruit shapes.
Description from the seed packet:
A new variety from Siberian breeders, distinguished by unusually long, cigar-shaped fruits 20-25 cm (8-10 inches) in length. The plant is indeterminate, up to 1.5-1.8 m (5-6 ft) tall, intended for growing in 1-2 stems in greenhouses and open ground. The fruits are red-crimson, long (you can snap them in half like a cucumber), meaty, and very tasty, weighing 200-250 g / 7-9 oz (the first ones up to 400 g / 14 oz), and are magnificent in salads. The yield is high, up to 5 kg (11 lbs) per plant.
Edited January 23, 2015 by Sweet
This is strictly for lovers of sausages and hot dogs… and various Aurias… 😆
Mine did not grow larger than 11 cm (4.3 inches). Maybe someday I’ll try planting it again…
I really loved the description on the packet. I struggled with this variety for 3 seasons, bought 3 different batches of seeds (from Siberian Garden), and absolutely nothing resembling the description grew.
That’s it—I’m completely disappointed. 😞 😝
Lyoka said:
Mine did not grow larger than 11 cm (4.3 inches).
And I didn’t get anywhere near 5 kg (11 lbs) of yield either. Very unlikely I will repeat this one.
I actually really liked the taste, it’s very meaty. But it is susceptible to diseases.
My original seeds were from SibSad, but now I save my own seeds. I’ve been growing it for 4 or 5 years. Mine fits the description: a long sausage shape, roughly 15-18 cm (6-7 inches) long. It is extremely good for canning in jars.
The bush was 1.20-1.30 m (4 ft) tall, with sparse foliage. The fruits were long, thick barrels, meaty, and the taste was not bad. I had 4 bushes and all of them had low yields. Ranged from 2.5 kg to 3.5 kg (5.5 – 7.7 lbs) per plant.
The yield is a bit lower than that of Auria, and possibly lower than other varieties because it starts ripening a bit later, resulting in an average total yield. In the photo below, Auria is on the left, and Aly Mustang (AM) is on the right:
The fruits were about 12 cm (4.7 inches) long, slightly shorter than Auria…
I have to admit, the taste did not impress me at all, even though I went through a lot of trouble to get this variety (it took several people helping me out before it finally made it into my garden bed)… You could say the flavor even disappointed me.
Alisa said:
You could say the flavor even disappointed me…
I wasn’t thrilled with the taste either, but I’ve had worse. Also, the entire middle section of my bush was completely bare. Not because the blossoms dropped, but because there was a massive 1-meter (3.2 ft) gap between the bottom two trusses and the next ones up! 😲
Well, I was absolutely thrilled with the taste.
I’ve been growing AM for several years, and I am quite satisfied with the taste and yield. I grow it exclusively outdoors in open ground. Height is 100 to 120 cm (3.2-4 ft). It has thin, lacy, weeping/wispy foliage. I prune it to 2, sometimes 3 stems 👍.
I grew three plants, and all three turned out completely different (unstable seeds). One matched the description, another was a determinate bush (60 cm / 2 ft tall) with massive leaves. The third was tall, but the fruit shape was completely wrong. And I didn’t like the taste of any of them.
Scarlet Mustang fruits have a sharp, pointed beak and are smooth on all sides—not ribbed/indented like Auria—just long. There is very little liquid or seed gel in the chambers. The flesh isn’t dry, but it doesn’t leak juices when you snap it or slice it.
Grown outdoors. The variety has a medium yield—about 3-4 fruits per truss, but it keeps setting fruit right up until autumn. Strictly a canning tomato; it’s not for fresh eating.
