Robbie Wojciechowski

Hiya, it's Robbie here and it's time for this week's Unexpected Elements quiz.

Potatoes are one of the most common foods on the planet.

Mashed, fried, roasted or chipped, you can find them in one form or another pretty much anywhere.

But where do they really come from?

Well, a team of scientists have been looking into their origins and have come across something quite unexpected.

It turns out that the potato's ability to form tubers, that's the fleshy bit of the potato that we eat, evolved from another plant millions of years ago.

so my question to you is which of these is the potato's ancestor is it a a tomato b an onion or c cassava my question to you is which of these is the potato's ancestor that's a a tomato b an onion or c a cassava have a think and i'll be back soon with the answer

Hello again, it's Robbie here, back with the answer to this week's quiz.

Earlier, I asked you, what is the potato's unexpected ancestor?

Was it A, a tomato, B, an onion, or C, cassava?

And the answer is A, a tomato.

A group of scientists from the Agricultural Genomics Institute in China found that wild tomatoes that grew in the Andes crossed with another wild plant called Etuberosum, and the two began to mix their genetic material.

The process formed a whole new variety of plant, producing thick starchy underground tubers that became the potatoes that we know and love today.

The potatoes inherited genes from both parent plants, and thrived because of their resilience against cold winters and tough droughts,

which made them favourable to farmers.

So next time you're having chips with ketchup, just remember you're basically eating the distant cousins of the same plant.

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