Hom-ozygous tall pea plants look the same as heterozygous tall pea plants. Formulate a pollination experiment to identify whether a tall pea plant is hom-ozygous or heterozygous. Explain your answer in 3-5 sentences.
We can use a punnet square to predict the outcomes of the offspring when crossing two tall plants, and base the experiment we will perform on those probabilities.
A punnet square is a tool used by many genetic scientists. It uses the genetic makeup of the parents to guess those of the offspring. The punnet square will give us probabilities for each outcome. We can design an experiment in which we make predictions using a punnet square based on Hom-ozygous alleles and heterozygous alleles.
Only by using two Hom-ozygous plants can we guarantee 100% tall plants, and only by using two heterozygous plants can we produce a short plant. Therefore, we can repeat the experiments until a short plant appears or we can only tall plants, and this way we can single out the Hom-ozygous and heterozygous plants.
