SouthEastFarmer wrote:
When i first saw this thread title, i thought it would be about graft potato plants 
I've read about how you can graft tomato on to potato plants as a "rootstock" but have never tried it. a hot pepper interstem would be even more fun.
Unless you have a greenhouse to keep the plant alive for more than a season, I can't imagine it would be worth the effort beyond the novelty. I wonder how the vigorous topgrowth of tomatoes and some pepper varieties would affect the potato yield? Would the plants still die back once the potatoes had formed?
I asked my dad about that years ago. He says it does cut into the yield of both spuds and fruit.
Does the capsaicin come from the interstem? If it's generated in the roots, the way nicotine is, then a hot tomato might become a marketable item...hm.
Peppers are perennial in my conditions, given enough masonry & mulch.
"the qualities of these bacteria, like the heat of the sun, electricity, or the qualities of metals, are part of the storehouse of knowledge of all men. They are manifestations of the laws of nature, free to all men and reserved exclusively to none." SCOTUS, Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kale Inoculant Co.