eli5: Why do tomatoes not have tubers like potatoes?

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Are they not in the same family?

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3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The tomato plant do have small tubers. These can grow to about the size of a thumb on certain plants. Just like on potato these tubers contain a lot of starch that help the plant survive harsh conditions. But the tomato tubers are usually too small to survive even a mild winter. And in general the tubers are biggest before the first flowers which in tomato happens very early compared to the potato. This is all the result of targeted breeding which favours tomato plants with lots of big fruits which end up consuming all the starch in the tubers to make the fruits big and sweet. The potato plant however have been breed to produce many large tubers and are therefore the opposite of the tomato. The potato will make flowers and fruits but not many and are usually harvested before this.

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