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Bizarre plant grows tomatoes and potatoes


Still Waters

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It sounds like something from a science fiction film, but a plant which produces both potatoes and tomatoes has been launched in the UK.

The ‘TomTato’ can grow more than 500 sweet cherry tomatoes above ground, while beneath the soil it produces white potatoes that are suitable for boiling, roasting or turning into chips.

Horticultural mail order company Thompson & Morgan, which is selling the plants for £14.99 each, described their new product as a “veg plot in a pot”.

http://www.telegraph...-unleashed.html

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Is it safe to say its genetically modified then ....

From the article:

"The hybrid plants are not a product of genetic engineering, but are each individually hand-grafted."

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Is it safe to say its genetically modified then ....

Dunno since they won't say what the seed stock is. Could be that the tomato or the potato stock it GMO in itself, and very well could be that neither is. But the process of grafting tomato to potato is not GMO in any way. They didn't alter nightshade seed to grow both tomatoes and potatoes, they take a tomato plant and whack off the roots, a potato plant and whack off it's greens on top, and grow the two halves together. One could probably do the same thing in their garden with skill, luck, and choosing the right tomato and potato to graft together.

It's the same premise they use when grafting fruit trees. Like apple tree rootstock X, and graft on apples A, B, and C onto it. Or fruit tree rootstock X and graft on peaches, plums, and apricots to it.

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Dunno since they won't say what the seed stock is. Could be that the tomato or the potato stock it GMO in itself, and very well could be that neither is. But the process of grafting tomato to potato is not GMO in any way. They didn't alter nightshade seed to grow both tomatoes and potatoes, they take a tomato plant and whack off the roots, a potato plant and whack off it's greens on top, and grow the two halves together. One could probably do the same thing in their garden with skill, luck, and choosing the right tomato and potato to graft together.

It's the same premise they use when grafting fruit trees. Like apple tree rootstock X, and graft on apples A, B, and C onto it. Or fruit tree rootstock X and graft on peaches, plums, and apricots to it.

Yep. No different from those amazing wonder trees they used to advertise in the Sunday newspaper magazine supplements. Not even particularly unusual since like your examples, potatoes and tomatoes are just different species in the same genus, solanum.

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Yep. No different from those amazing wonder trees they used to advertise in the Sunday newspaper magazine supplements. Not even particularly unusual since like your examples, potatoes and tomatoes are just different species in the same genus, solanum.

Yep, and it's been done to graft other other nightshades like peppers and eggplants too. And curbits are grafted as well. Usually these graftings are done to give a heartier or more resistant rootstock base to a more delicate or less resistant top. Or to make an heirloom have an increased yield like a hybrid has. Japan has a history of doing this for almost a century, and quite a bit of their nightshades and curbits are grafted plants. There are a handful of U.S. seed/stock producers that provide rootstock for this purpose, and apparently a lot of gardeners rather like grafting.

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From the article:

"The hybrid plants are not a product of genetic engineering, but are each individually hand-grafted."

Thank you .My bad for not reading the entire article

Edited by Simbi Laveau
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That's awesome. If I had a veggie garden I'd definitely buy these. Would be pretty funny to rip a tomato plant in front of someone and have potato's follow.

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Yep; when you graft a rose plant to a hardier root stock you have a hardier plant, but must be careful how low you go on the plant when you prune the plant for winter. The tomato-potato plant only lasts for one growing season, so you don't need to worry about pruning.

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I'm liking it! Tomatoes on top and potatoes on the bottom in the ground and apparently all natural.

Though I do prefer baby red potatoes over white(just my taste) Wonder if they could do that too.

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mother nature is going to punish us for this ! if not . god will ! and i , i wanna try one :D

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Holy cow lots of folks need to learn about plants.. I cut out a whole rant, but still need to say a lot of folks need to learn..

Aww, you should have left your rant in, otherwise how will we know what you are talking about. Seems like most of the posters here have a pretty good understanding of what grafting is. But if it's wrong I'd like to know about it. Please share.

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Aww, you should have left your rant in, otherwise how will we know what you are talking about. Seems like most of the posters here have a pretty good understanding of what grafting is. But if it's wrong I'd like to know about it. Please share.

I agree. Please share your knowledge.

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Nah, it was a useless rant, not an educational one. Mostly about how everyone should have a garden. A lot of people that start gardening end up learning a lot of information about plants.

Like a couple of the joking comments here about being able to have chips and ketchup on one plant. Not all potatoes are well suited to make chips, and not all tomatoes are well suited to make ketchup.

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Nah, it was a useless rant, not an educational one. Mostly about how everyone should have a garden. A lot of people that start gardening end up learning a lot of information about plants.

Like a couple of the joking comments here about being able to have chips and ketchup on one plant. Not all potatoes are well suited to make chips, and not all tomatoes are well suited to make ketchup.

Oh, ok. It was all in fun, I'm sure we aware. But, how often do we get to bust out the tomato and potato on one plant jokes. ... we get excited! :D I, personally, have waited a lifetime to use "frankenveggie" !

And now I've used it twice! I can retire. :)

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Oh, ok. It was all in fun, I'm sure we aware. But, how often do we get to bust out the tomato and potato on one plant jokes. ... we get excited! :D I, personally, have waited a lifetime to use "frankenveggie" !

And now I've used it twice! I can retire. :)

Yeah, that's why I figured I had a useless rant- because jokes are made in good fun. But oh, the dickens of a time I have had getting together a collection of tomatoes in each color that are suitable for for a season of usage... Kind of makes me take it all to seriously. I'm probably too serious in general about food and gardening, sometimes hard not to rant in a lot of threads about it.

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I have done a bit of grafting, mostly just to see if it would be successful and the losses can be high. Seems like this would be very expensive on a commercial scale.

By grafting the two specie's vascular systems you may also make a pathway for disease not present when the species are grown separately.

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The reason it is successful,is because both the potato and the tomato are both members if I recall correctly of the nightshade family.Since they seem to be related, the likely hood of the whole thing taking off is good.

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