Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Tomato and potato plant unveiled in the UK

A plant that produces both tomatoes and potatoes, called the TomTato, has been developed for the UK market.

Ipswich-based horticultural firm Thompson and Morgan said the plants were not genetically modified.
Similar plants have been created in the UK, but the firm said it was thought to be the first time they had been produced on a commercial scale.

Right the obvious question why has this company felt the need to develop a TomTato? I’m not exactly keen on the name but as both end in ‘ato’ so I guess there’s not really much option.

I really don’t see the need for these two to be combined into one mutant plant, there have been attempts to do this in the past but the taste had been a problem, and if there is even a suggestion here that this latest effort is lacking in taste it will be an instant non-starter.

This reminds me of that Simpsons episode, E-I-E-I (Annoyed Grunt), where Homer grows Tomacco, tomato seeds mixed with tobacco seeds and a little plutonium thrown in for good measure, that makes for a hilarious half-hour of animated comedy but I think we should stick to growing both potatoes and tomatoes in the conventional way.


If you want a more relevant real-world example of what this is equivalent to it is like a Liger, cross between a male lion and a female tiger, makes for an interesting one-off, but that’s all it should ever be a one-off.  

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