From mashed to fried to scalloped, the potato is a beloved and essential part of diets around the world. Yet for all its global presence — with more than 350 million tons produced annually — one question has long puzzled scientists and food lovers alike: Where did the potato come from?
Now, an international team of researchers has finally cracked the mystery, and the answer is as surprising as it is fascinating. Potatoes, it turns out, are the ancient offspring of tomatoes and a lesser-known wild plant group from South America called Etuberosum.
Published this week in the prestigious journal Cell, the groundbreaking study reveals that potatoes likely emerged 8 to 9 million years ago from a natural hybridization event between wild tomatoes and Etuberosum species. This rare genetic union led to the evolution of the potato’s most defining trait — the tuber, the underground nutrient storage structure we know and eat today.
“A potato is the child of tomato and Etuberosum,” said Zhiyang Zhang, lead author of the study and researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. “We did this analysis and we found, ‘Oh, he’s a child of two plants.’”
The Mystery of the Spud’s Origins
Botanists have long been puzzled by the potato’s strange ancestry. Above ground, the plant closely resembles species from the Etuberosum subgroup. But genetically, potatoes are more closely related to tomatoes — both belong to the Solanum genus.
To resolve this paradox, the team analyzed 128 plant genomes, spanning wild and cultivated potatoes, tomatoes, Etuberosum, and even eggplants as a comparative control group. What they discovered was a complex genomic blend — a clear signal that the modern potato arose from a genetic mix between ancient tomato and Etuberosum lineages.
Evolution’s Genetic Recipe: A Pinch of Tomato, A Scoop of Wild Roots
The key to this evolutionary leap lies in two specific genes:
- SP6A, the gene that signals the plant to begin tuber formation, came from the tomato lineage.
- IT1, which regulates the growth of underground stems that swell into tubers, was inherited from Etuberosum.
This natural combination eventually led to the emergence of the first true potato — a plant capable of surviving the cold, mountainous terrain of the Andes, where over 100 potato species are now found.
A New Chapter for Crop Innovation
While only a handful of potato species are widely cultivated today, scientists say this new understanding of its origins could lead to a breakthrough in agricultural science.
“Improving potatoes has been a challenge because they’re typically propagated through cloning, which limits genetic diversity,” said Pingxian Zhang, co-author of the study. “Knowing where they come from could help us breed more resilient varieties — maybe even by reintroducing genes from tomatoes.”
Tomatoes and potatoes already share a lot — not just in their roots, but also in their biology. Armed with this fresh knowledge, geneticists now have a blueprint to strengthen the potato against disease, pests, and climate change through smart breeding or gene editing.
Rewriting the Potato’s Family Tree
The study has drawn praise from across the scientific world.
“It provides a model of how hybridization events in the distant past can lead to new, successful species,” said Esther van der Knaap, a plant geneticist at the University of Georgia.
“A creative use of genomics,” added Richard Veilleux, a potato expert at Virginia Tech. “We always assumed something unusual had to happen to produce a tuber. Now we know the ‘how’ and the ‘who.’”
And while the plants involved in the ancient hybrid no longer exist in their original forms, modern genomic tools allow scientists to reconstruct what once was — almost like time-traveling through DNA.
A Rooted Revelation
More than just a scientific curiosity, the story of the potato’s origins is a reminder of nature’s quiet genius. Millions of years ago, a tomato-like plant and a tuberless shrub merged in the wild, giving rise to a food source that would one day feed billions.
The humble potato, it turns out, is a living fossil — a hybrid miracle hidden in plain sight on our dinner plates.
