The Tomtato- Plant Which Produces Potato and Tomato, Launched in the UK

Horticultural mail order company Thompson & Morgan developed a plant called The TomTato, which can produce not just the tomatoes, but also potatoes. The TomTato is described as the veg plot in a pot and it was launched in UK. The TomTato has the capability of growing over 500 sweet cherry tomatoes and also the white potatoes.

Thompson & Morgan sells the plants at a cost of 14.99 Pounds each. Thompson & Morgan explained that the hybrid plants were not a result of genetic engineering, but were hand-crafted. The grafted tomato-potato plants were earlier produced in the UK as well, but it is for the very first that such plants were produced commercially.

Paul Hansord, horticultural director at the company explained that the idea of The TomTato struck 15 years ago in the US. Various trials of The TomTato took place for several years. It became difficult to produce this plant because the tomato stem and the potato stem needed to have the same thickness for the graft to work.

It is possible to grow these plants either outside or inside, with the condition being that they should be in a large pot or a bag. A product like this, known as the Potato Tom was also launched in the garden centres in New Zealand in the third week of September 2013.