Why Did No One Tell Me It’s Illegal To Grow Purple Tomatoes?

[00:00:00]These are purple tomatoes, and they're bred to be like blueberries. [music] They may look like regular tomatoes, but the purple color makes them 100% tastier. And I guess none of us have ever even seen [music] these before.

[00:00:13]Now, here's the thing. They're patented, so technically speaking, they are illegal to grow at home if you're selling them or any crosses you make from them. But there's a gray area because if you're not making a profit from them, if you're just growing them to eat yourself, then nothing is actually stopping you. And unlike pink pineapples where they literally cut the crowns off so you cannot propagate them, they can't really prevent you from growing purple tomatoes the same way.

[00:00:40]And since 10 seeds cost $20, I decided I would grow my very own deep purple plant. I started cutting them all open to see what was actually going on inside. And one by one, I was pretty shocked to see how crazy cool it looked [music] like inside. But what actually are these and what's the science that makes them purple? Well, they're called Empress Limited Edition Tomatoes, and yes, they are GMO, and yes, it is controversial. They chose the word Empress to make the buyer feel luxury and rarity. The marketing was intentional here about making GMO feel premium rather than scary. [music] Launched in 2024 in the US and Canada, the whole point was to create a tomato with antioxidants as high as blueberries have, and with a similar color, but with a taste like tomatoes. And the way they did this is genuinely wild. [music] Two genes were taken from snapdragon flowers, like the garden flower.

[00:01:39]Essentially, the genes just get copied and pasted from the snapdragon flowers into the tomatoes, and that's how they grow totally purple. The snapdragon genes don't just add color. They actually activate existing genes in the tomato that were already there, but technically silenced. So, the tomato always had the potential, it just needed to be switched on. The snapdragon is completely edible, so technically speaking, you're eating a tomato with genes from a flower you could already eat anyway. So, as I learned more about these cool tomatoes, I cut them in half to reveal the seeds on both sides, and I got ready to get them into some soil.

[00:02:17]Revealing the seeds on both sides will just make sure the little shoots don't get stuck [music] inside the actual tomato flesh as they're growing. This is actually the only known way to produce a tomato that's fully purple all the way through, which means if you ever see someone selling a variety with that trait, it's [music] very likely that it's been bioengineered. With these, the skin and the flesh are both purple all the way through, which is rare because most purple tomatoes you see, like black krim, are only purple on the outside with the very slightest lines of purple inside if any. And [music] let me just say how crazy I think patenting food is.

[00:02:55]Like, what if someone wanted to grow these to sell? [music] Well, they can't, which is why I'm using that free will to grow them for myself and to see if they really grow purple. The company that made these even had to get regulatory approval from Health Canada, USDA, FDA, and approval in Australia, and they passed [music] everyone with flying colors, which to me is a meaningful data point in the GMO debate. Once all of my fruit was in [music] soil and all of the seeds were visible under and on top, I was ready to cover it up with more soil.

[00:03:26]Lucky for us, tomatoes are really easy to grow, so in around 2 months, we should be able to harvest the ripe fruit, and that's seriously what I love about planting straight-up tomatoes. Is that they always grow straight from the fruit and so fast. Of course, I also had to taste them to see if they do in fact taste like a blueberry. Honestly, they tasted more like a tomato to me, maybe just less acidic and a little meatier, but I don't care because I will eat a deep purple tomato over a regular one any day.

[00:03:57]>> [music] >> So, any who, after I finished planting the tomatoes, I placed it outside in a sunny spot and I watered them every morning for 5 days until I started to see little sprouts finally poking out of the soil. [music] And before I knew it, the time started to pass and I started to see the stems growing out of the little plant and I could finally identify it as a tomato plant. I even used my app to snap a photo and see if I could identify it properly. Luckily, it did and I even got some projects I could start tracking inside of the app like growing regular cherry tomatoes. So, I used the cherry tomato project as a guide for this one and then I got back to waiting for my actual plant to grow.

[00:04:38]And by the way, you can download Grow It on the App Store and on Google Play. I built and developed it myself. I use it every day and I'd love to do an experiment with you guys. So, I've added [music] the links for you to check out.

[00:04:50]So, I noticed it started to get very bushy and a little bit taller, putting out tons of new shoots and leaves. And since it was finally starting to look like a real tomato plant now and getting slightly crowded, I decided it was time to replant it in a bigger pot so that it could have the space it needed and grow as fast as possible so we could harvest our purp tomatoes by the end of the summer. And once the flowers show up is when the fruit will really start to grow and likely will have bees and other bugs and insects as our pollinators doing their thing. But I'm also going to personally hand pollinate the male flowers with the female [music] flowers using a paintbrush to make sure the plant is well equipped to have fruit babies. Honestly, here's the part I'm most curious about. I can't wait to see if the tomatoes end up looking like the purple ones we planted or if they somehow grow like normal red tomatoes.

[00:05:41]Because since they're technically a hybrid variety, there's a chance that the seeds may not grow true to its fruit. So, it is possible we may revert it back to one of its grandparents.

[00:05:50][music] So, let's see what happens with that, but I do have a lot of hope for these tomatoes that they will grow purple in the final result. And I'm telling you right now, they better grow purple. So, come back in about 6 weeks to see if we harvest purple tomatoes.