Question: What is your opinion on some scientists bioengineering hybrid life form such as the pomato.

Liudmila Khokhlova answered on 23 Nov 2020: last edited 23 Nov 2020 1:30 pm

Pomato is an example of grafting, a technique that was used for many years, especially for fruit trees. While pomato plant seems a bit weird, a lot of fruit trees are grafted nowadays.
First mentions of grafting date back to ancient Rome and Greece. It even sometimes happens in nature. The idea is to use for example a root system of a strong wild apple tree and put a top (or just a few branches) from another apple tree with big apples. The plants do not mix genetically, it just one plant using part of another closely related plant (like organ transplantation).
I would say there’re many advantages: we can get fruits earlier, we can grow some plants in places where they would never be able to grow without the help of another plant, we can save space if we plant pomatoes and so on. There are some issues with disease transmissions, but in my opinion, benefits outweigh the trouble. Mixing the species genetically, however, is another big topic to discuss.