Quick Summary of Striped Roman (Rimskiy Polosatyi)
- 🌍 Origin: A famous American heirloom known in the Russian tomato community as “Rimskiy Polosatyi”.
- 🍅 The Great Debate (Striped vs. Speckled): This forum thread perfectly captures the classic confusion surrounding this variety. As noted by growers (and Tatiana’s TOMATObase), there are essentially two circulating lines: Striped Roman (thinner, elongated with a sharp tip/beak) and Speckled Roman (chubbier, thicker, with little to no tip). Both variations are heavily discussed and photographed below!
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. Height varies greatly depending on growing conditions: around 1m (3.3 ft) outdoors, and up to 1.5m+ (5 ft+) in a greenhouse. Regular, wispy-leaning foliage that doesn’t block the sun from the fruits.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Stunning red elongated plum/paste tomatoes with wavy orange and yellow stripes. Sizes range widely from standard paste size up to massive 300g (10.5 oz) fruits under optimal greenhouse conditions. The skin is on the thicker side.
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: Dense, meaty, and not dry. While the early fruits can sometimes be a bit mild or bland, mid-to-late season fruits develop a good, classic tomato flavor with a nice aroma.
- 🥫 Best Uses: An absolute workhorse for canning, making thick sauces, and drying, thanks to its dense flesh and high yield.
The bush is over a meter (3.3 ft) tall. It might act as an indeterminate in a greenhouse, but I grew it outdoors in open ground. Yield and taste are good. Beauty is not the last priority for me, so I will definitely grow it again. It was the only striped variety this year that didn’t have dry corky stripes on the skin. Mid-season ripening.
Natasha (Yaroslavna), could you please take a look! It seems to me this variety is a twin to your Pink Flamingo. 😳
How can you guys do this to me… 😩 That’s it, I’m going to the doctor… let them cure my obsession with striped tomatoes…
Vera, I’ve had my “Pink Flamingo” for a very long time — I received it from Ukraine at least 8-10 years ago. I grow it every year; I just can’t live without this beauty… Yes, I agree, there are sweeter and tastier varieties out there… But, as they say, man does not live by bread alone…
They look incredibly alike. I plan to compare them this year. I’ll sow both! 👍 I also really liked this handsome tomato! 👍
In the greenhouse, the bush grows up to 1.5 m (5 ft), with good foliage. The stems are strong. I tie up every single truss so they don’t break — the fruits are large, up to 300 g (10.5 oz).
Both my bush and my fruits were smaller. My soil is sandy loam, and they grew outdoors.
And here is my Striped Roman:
Vera, does Striped Roman have a very thick skin?
It seems to me that Alena’s and Vera’s tomatoes have different tips (noses). Vera’s is longer and sharper, just like Natasha’s Pink Flamingo.
Yes, it is slightly thick-skinned. And Elena’s shape is indeed different. I had that exact shape on my Tiger Plum (Sliva Tigrovaya). The seeds for both varieties were from Popenko (a well-known Russian seed seller).
tomatinka said:
And here is my Striped Roman
Yes, Alena’s photo shows one that is exactly the same as mine…
tomatinka said:
I have one like this from Marishka. 👍 But Striped Roman’s tip is sharper, on the contrary.
Striped Roman is very different — it’s indeterminate and the fruits are chubby! 😆
Svet, I was replying to Olya, she wrote that Roman has a blunter tip. Mine isn’t as round as yours, it’s thinner… it’s from Popenko, so maybe I got an off-type (crossed seeds) 😮. 😳
Svetikk said:
Striped Roman is very different — it’s indeterminate and the fruits are chubby! 😆
My Striped Roman didn’t have a tip like that at all. 😳
Here is my Striped Roman:
Striped Roman = Speckled Roman = Stripy Long Tomate = Long Willi. We tried it this year too. Number one is the beauty of its shape with the tip, and the color — orange wavy stripes over a red base. It is not dry, and it definitely has taste and aroma.
Our bush is 1 meter (3.3 ft) tall, still growing and flowering. So far, we’ve picked 5 tomatoes and there are 14 large green ones still on the bush, it will yield about 2 kg (4.4 lbs) per plant. The foliage is not overly dense; it doesn’t block the fruits from the sun.
Looking at Tatiana’s TOMATObase and the photos, I saw that both versions exist: the thinner variety with a pointed tip (Striped Roman) and the thicker variety without a tip (Speckled Roman, from Kushnareva). The one sold here in Europe is the one with the tip.
A good, highly productive variety, I liked it. It’s a chubby little plum, the tip is very small.
The yield of this variety was amazing. It is still producing fruit to this day. The first fruits weren’t very large, but the subsequent ones were real fatties. The skin is a bit thick, the tomato itself is dense. The early ones were quite bland, but the later ones developed some taste, though it still feels like it’s missing something for me 🤷♀️ I’ve probably just gotten too spoiled (with good tomatoes)… 😳
But the tomato sure is beautiful!
Repeating this interesting variety again. Grown outdoors again, the yield is excellent. The bush is not very tall, just perfect for open ground.
I hadn’t grown it for a long time. Decided to repeat it this year from my own saved seeds.
