Scientists discover potatoes are the lovechild of the ancient etuberosum and tomatoes
The Potato’s Family: Scientists Discover Ancient Origin: Potato, which is a beloved and extremely important part of our plate, has a very interesting story! Perhaps you have never heard this story, but today we are going to tell you the story of the entire lineage of potatoes. However, this story is not from our side but from the scientists doing research on potatoes. So the thing is that scientists have recently discovered how potatoes were born, and the most surprising thing is that the “parents” of the potatoes we eat today are tomatoes and a wild potato.
About 8 to 9 million years ago, there was a species on Earth that was neither fully a tomato nor a potato. When these two mated, the potato was born. Scientists say that the potato was born when the ancestors of the tomato “mated” with a wild potato species called Atuberosum. This Atuberosum was found in central Chile. When these two mated, their genes combined to form a new plant, which we know today as the potato.
Potato is the mother of tomato and the father of tuberosum
Professor Sanwen Huang of the Shenzhen Institute of Agricultural Genomics led the research. He said, “Tomato is its mother and ntuberosum is its father!” But this father, Atuberosum, is quite different from today’s potato. From the outside, both look a bit similar, but Atuberosum has thin stems and does not have starch-filled tubers like potatoes.
How did potatoes become so special?
When tomato and tuberosum were combined, the potato acquired some special properties. This new potato could grow even in difficult weather and difficult conditions. Its tuber (i.e., potato) could store water and nutrients, which were not there in the tomato or tuberosum. This is the reason why potatoes spread all over the world and became so popular. Not only this, but potatoes became so unique that they can no longer reproduce with their “parents”. In this way potato became a completely new species, which scientists call Petota.
How did you find out all this?
Scientists studied the genes of tomatoes and potatoes in depth. They observed that tomatoes, potatoes and tuberosum belong to the same plant family, which also includes eggplant and tobacco. But the genes of tomatoes and potatoes were the closest. This research showed that the combination of two different species can create something completely new. These results were published in the journal Cell on 31 July 2025.
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