Potatoes grow underground. Tomatoes grow above the ground. The TomTato plant grows both potatoes underground and tomatoes above ground… at the same time!
I don’t know what the folks over at British horticultural firm Thompson and Morgan were thinking, but they managed to turn a far-off idea into reality. It took them ten years, but they finally figured out how to make a plant grow potatoes and tomatoes without genetically modifying it.
The process involved grafting, more grafting, and even more grafting before the team achieved success. Incredibly, the plants were combined without genetic modification.
Thompson and Morgan director Paul Hansord explains: “It has been very difficult to achieve because the tomato stem and the potato stem have to be the same thickness for the graft to work… It is a very highly skilled operation. We have seen similar products. However, on closer inspection the potato is planted in a pot with a tomato planted in the same pot – our plant is one plant and produces no potato foliage.”
Pretty weird, but still amazing, isn’t it?
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