Tomato grafted to potato @ the UK part of the world

I took the plunge a few days ago and ordered two of the UK's  first commercially available  grafted potato /tomato  which are called TOMTATO's.

 They cost an arm and a leg at first glance but as you read on you may think it is worth the cost for what it can mean to us ANSFG'ers .


 Mine will be grown in my own version enhanced coir growth medium set in 100 litre sized plastic trash cans and be grown in my  glasshouse . When they are ended , the spent coir will be used as a peat substitute for making up more MM with my home made composts & new vermiculite.   Helps keeps costs right down .


The Tomtato's arrived this morning , well packed in a rigid holder which was inserted in a cardboard sleeve.

 I took them out the pack and watered them then sat them on the heated misting bed in the green house that is on at 65 oF / 19 oC under heat . this afternoon they had perked up a bit , tonight I've covered them with fleece to keep them warm as it's turned rather wet & brassy tonight .


After doing a bit of research tonight  I found that they seem to have been developed about 2003 , I found that both the potato stem and the tomato stem have to be a good match in diameters when doing the graft .


When the two live plants have been side by side grafted, once the graft heals/takes ,  you sever the live tomato root & remove it  , then sever the potato top & dispose of it .

 The graft severance sore now has to heal , then you plant it with the graft below the soil so that the tubers only develop below, otherwise you'll have potato tops emerge if the graft is above the soil.
The tomato end is treated like any bother tomato .



The beauty/ simplicity  of such a grafted plant like a tomtato is that you get two valuable crops from only one soil foot print with few additional resources needed to produce great results .
 
This commercialisation of them could soon  ( in three or four years time ) see many UK gardeners & small holders buying them for around £ 1.50  each  it the idea gets enough take up initially .
 The grafting is done in the Netherlands and the potted plants are shipped over here , obviously you can't pant them out till after the last frost as the tomato end won't survive things.   So you may have to repot at least once before putting them out into a 40 litre plus sized container or planted out doors in quality soil in full sun .

 The tomatoes are currently of the  vine  type and are cherry tomatoes , they should take about 12 weeks ( from the initial graft ??? ) till  they are producing tomatoes .



 The potatoes are harvested a fortnight after the tomato vine dies and is removed , this is done to stop the dreaded blight affecting the tubers .

Wow, that is wild. Very interesting idea. Had never even suspected one could do that.

I wonder how the ideal fertilizing schedule, taking into account both crops and their preferred timing, works out.

Very exciting plantoid! Will you share pictures as you go along? Can't wait to see how this works out for you. Be looking forward to hearing updates on the plants progress.

+1!  Yes, please keep us updated...!!!

Most interesting. Please keep us poted.

please keep us posted and would love to see pictures......sounds like a great way to get two different harvest of food......  very interesting indeed!

happy gardening
rose

Marc Iverson wrote:Wow, that is wild.  Very interesting idea.  Had never even suspected one could do that.

I wonder how the ideal fertilizing schedule, taking into account both crops and their preferred timing, works out.

 Treat them exactly as you would vine tomatoes in a glasshouse or if it's warm enough as you would outside .
 
Apparently growth rate is meteoric once they get established ..looks like I'll be needing to run them up ropes to the glasshouse roof .
 They have perked up a lot since yesterday but still look a bit anaemic & wan

 I checked the " children "  last thing tonight and tucked them up on the heat bed with a nice new length of white fleece so that they can have sweet dreams @ 65  oF .   

tomorrow  I'm preparing two 80 litre plastic trash cans as  their plant pots. I will start them off at 50 litres of fill and them as they grow increase the depth to 80 litres worth to see if they will grow lots of spuds on the tuber stem

And here I am trying to graft my little old tomato seedlings to other little old tomato seedlings! How very yesterday!

   

What a fascinating thing!  Like everyone else has asked, please keep us posted and any photos would be awesome.  My daughter just looked up an adult plant on-line.  It's crazy (or as she just said "freaky!!)

End of summer report on the Tomtatoes.

 We have had pounds and pounds of some of the sweetest reddest slightly small than a golf ball tomatoes off the two tomtato plants.

 The plant shows no sign of crop reduction for there must still be about 25 green ones coming along nicely as well as having lots of set and unset flowers .

 When I fed the plants today with a high potash low nitrogen tomato feed  I noticed in one tub a big green orb about three inches across  starting to poke up through the MM .
On carefully moving some MM I turned out to be a big round potato .

I've covered it up with a large dinner plate size dollop of a three inch jacket of MM . The plant will absorb the greening and the potato will revert to a white potato in about 10 day s.
 
I'm going to let the plants run for as long as I can .  Perhaps even to letting the cold sort them out naturally when the ambient air temperature  falls to 50 oF for five hours or more as that type of cold for that length of time usually snuffs out all the tomato plants outside or those in an unheated glasshouse if the magic 50 oF occurs for the same period of time.

There are still several outdoor tomatoes struggling to ripen  and even more green fruits  on the  normal potted tomato plants growing up on ropes  in the glasshouse.

Of my trial at getting the tomato grafted to the potato . A 90 % square  cut on both the chit and the tomato plant with a razor blade or scalpel are imperative .

You need to also match the diameters of the tomato seedling and potato chit as close as possible & place them directly on each other.   I did try to use a slice graft with some crepe masking tape cut to 5 mm wide and made like a letter" U " then gently closed at the graft site having first used the same method to hold the tomato part of things  to a thin wooden BBQ kebab stick .

However the house sitters didn't know there was a problem in the glasshouse auto watering when a vital pipe  came adrift .  As a result the sand bed containing the trial grafts in pots  didn't get enough watering ,  most died from lack of water.
Of the two plants that did survive I think I cut too low down the stem for many emergency roots off the tomato developed and swamped the 1/2" dia chitted potato from just above the graft point .


Though the good news is that elsewhere three grafts did take . & formed a callus and grew tomato top and produced a few c chits on the potato .
 I suspect That to get the best graft the tomato will need to be cut at the same dia as the chitted potato  several centimetres above the emergency root nodes and the potato to be cut a fraction above the base of the chit .
 


2015 will see me doing more experiments in this grafting technique .
This time with me using the salad yellow wax potato for I love them as a boiled potato as they are nice and small & firm .  They also make for a fantastic smoked German sausage & potato salad .

Plantoid, Thank you for the update on your grafting. Sounds very productive.

I can do wait to try this!  Thanks Plantoid!  I love the idea of two very different crops from one footprint.

Found this photo on BBC.com in my Google search.

Plantoid, that sounds great!  Glad it's going so well.

Cool pic, Dstack!  I might have to try that one myself...

I wish you had some photos of your tomato-potato plant, plantoid!

They are a bit weedy looking plants because they are nearing the end of season .

I'll take some piccies tomorrow though there's not a lot to see as the spuds are below ground level .

I was curious to see if YouTube had anything about tomtatos, and this is what I found (Yes, the same guy as in the photo I posted)...


There are a few other videos on the subject with and without this guy.

I imagine it only makes sense to use a determinate potato variety with an indeterminate tomato. Right? 

After doing some research on growing potatoes in Florida I'm leaning toward trying the sebago and grafting an Everglade grape tomato.

I said the plants are starting to degrade .
I managed to take off six ripe ones before I took this picture yesterday. 
The vines reach the glasshouse roof some six feet tall but you do have to keep a very beady eye on the breaking out shoots .
This plant has plenty of break out's ,  the brown bit used to be one ,  the tomatoes by it are off the greener part of the vine.
Tonight is forecast cooler wet weather by Tuesday we may have our first frost , the tomatoes  days are numbered well and truly methinks .


  

Can't wait to see the spuds!  As well as your own grafts next year!

Looks like a very prolific cherry tomato, Plantoid.  Was it like that all summer?

CC