TomTato – The plant that is half tomato and half potato
A British company, Thomson and Morgan, made the news last month when they announced a new botanical creation, the “Tomtato”, a Frakenstein plant that produces both tomatoes and potatoes. The company affirms that it is not a product of genetic Engineering as one might think at first hand but the result of a natural grafting...
Tomatoes that will change the economy
Normally we associate tomatoes with sauces, ketchup, pizza, ragout and so on, the applicable uses of tomato in gastronomy are almost infinite. Others however are beginning to see other applicable uses for tomatoes such as Bioplastics, or biodegradable plastics. The road to a sustainable agriculture is beginning to engage chemistry at as new agricultural practices are...
Organic V conventional tomatoes
Organic tomatoes contain more vitamin C and oxidative components according to a study “the impact of Organic Farming on Quality of Tomatoes is Associated to Increased Oxidative Stress during fruit development” . produced by Federal University of Ceara in Brazil and published on PloS One. Biological agriculture exposes the tomato plant to more stress during its...
How tomatoes lost their taste
If you ever tried home grown tomatoes you probably wandered why they taste better than the commercially produced ones or the ones you commonly find in supermarket shelves. A team of scientists from the Us and Spain coordinated by Ann Powel from University of California in Davis have discovered the reason why: a genetic mutation,...