TomTato ? A hybrid potato / tomato plant?! This is CRAZY Cool!

[Nifty]

I think this is brilliant!

http://foodbeast.com/2013/10/10/cool-plant-grows-both-tomatoes-and-potatos-ketchup-fries-anyone/

It has to be hand grafted, but I just love the idea!

What do you think? What if we could do this with a ton of plants and have double yield above and below ground?

 

[StupidBird]

These grafted plants show up every decade or so in the same catalogues that offer five in one fruit trees, ten feet a year shade trees, and other outlandish offers. Don't know how they behave, but it might not be all that good to be worth the effort other than the curiosity.

It would be interesting. This year I've seen grafted tomatoes just on sturdier rootstocks just to overcome diseases.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

you really don't want to grow tomatoes and potatoes close together. having them too close to each other makes them highly susceptible to blight. the plant looks interesting, but almost unreal because of the guy's hand being right over where the graft should be.

 

[Jared77]

Blight aside the nutrients required by the plant would be staggering, and without a ton of correct spectrum intense lighting on a long hours the plant couldn't even use the nutrients. I don't think you'd get much of either crop grafting them.

 

[Nifty]

Good points!

It would be cool if they could overcome the problems over-time and find an efficient and effective way to create a solid hybrid that doesn't have these issues.

 

[Nyboy]

Don't care about the plant , but would do anything for that fence!! Well maybe not anything.

 

[Dave2000]

What would concern me is that every now and then a potato plant may produce fruit by itself, berries that look like big cherry tomatoes but are toxic to humans due to containing solanine.

 

[897tgigvib]

It's pretty cool. Shows that grafts can be done between some different genera of the same Family (edited here to correct myself), much "wider" than can be done with sexual propagations.

As a viable novelty and as experimentals lots of things can be discovered doing this.

Details about disease and pest resistance can be studied. Things such as, can the top portions of a plant aid in Nematode resistance, Nematodes that affect the roots, or conversely, can the roots aid in resistance to leaf diseases. For example, might some varieties of Potato produce Allelic substances in their roots that travel through the stems to confer resistance to certain rusts or blights?

=====

Things like this make for wonderful thesis projects for grad students in agriculture and horticulture! "Conferred Resistance" or some name like that for it.

=====

By the way, this year Burpee Seed was selling Tomato plant seedlings that were grafted to Rootstock Tomatoes, varieties of Tomato especially bred to be great rootstocks.

Both Tomatoes and Potatoes are Perennials. Potatoes being dieback perennials that come back from their tubers similar to Dahlias, but as modified root. Tomatoes are tender short lived Perennials, some varieties more so than others.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Im just wondering how you harvest the potatoes without killing the tomatoes?

 

[bobm]

If one wants potatoes for dinner, it's not an either or situation ... Winner takes all in this game !