A POTATO-TOMATO?

Earlier this spring, Donald Keith went to Jessie's Fruit Market in Columbia and bought some Yukon Gold seed potatoes. Lee Jessie sold Keith the seed potatoes that originated in Minnesota that he had picked up at the produce terminal in Louisville.
Keith planted the potatoes, and they grew well in his garden. Then, last week while working in the garden, Keith noticed what appeared to be tiny green tomatoes growing on the some of the plants.
"I'd never seen anything like it before," he said. Keith pulled up a couple of the plants, and brought them to the fruit market, where Lee Jessie also noted that he had never seen anything like the plants either.
"They definitely look like small tomatoes," Jessie said.
Both men (along with this writer) speculated that some type of hybridization had occurred. And information pulled up on the Internet said that it was possible for it to be done.
However, Adair County Extension Agent for Agriculture Nick Roy says that this is not the case.
"What looks like small green tomatoes are actually the fruits of the potato vine," Roy explained.
"The vast majority of the time, potato flowers will just dry up and fall off, but sometimes they will produce fruit," he said. "And, the Yukon Gold variety of potatoes are know for doing this."
And, Roy warned that the fruit is poisonous and shouldn't be consumed.
"The fruit contains a poisonous alkaloid, solanine, and shouldn't be eaten," he said. "The fruit is of no use whatsoever." Photo: LEE JESSIE, left, and Donald Keith hold two potato plants that appear to have small tomatoes grown on them. However, the "tomatoes" are actually fruit of the potato plant. (Photos by Paul B. Hayes)