Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Food for Thought: Tomato + Potato = TomTato!!

Lo and behold, the TomTato!

Hey everyone,

To get you through the midweek grind, I offer you a Frankenplant in celebration of Halloween!! As NPR has pointed out, your fries AND ketchup now come in one complete package!What is awesome about this plant is that it grows potatoes in the soil and above ground are tomatoes that are sweeter than those on the market right now! (At least that's what they say). What's even more exciting is that it is not a genetically modified product!!

A UK company known as Thompson and Morgan has grafted (spliced the stems of both the tomato and potato plant and allowed them to heal) the two crops to grow as one! The director Paul Hansord explained that it's difficult to achieve grafting as the stem needs to be the same thickness, but they managed to pull it off after 15 years! The fruits of their labor is actually, well a fruit! Partly anyway...

Here's a link to a short video made by Tompson and Morgan on the plant, check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Ky1cyTuzk

In addition, here are a couple articles I used to summarize the information for you guys!

Enjoy!
- Charles Quinto