Homozygous tall pea plants look the same as heterozygous tall pea plants. Formulate a pollination experiment to identify whether a tall pea plant is homozygous or heterozygous. Explain your answer in 3-5 sentences. (4 points)

Answer 1

To determine whether a tall pea plant is homozygous or heterozygous, you can perform a test cross. First, cross the tall pea plant with a homozygous short pea plant. If the resulting offspring are all tall, then the original tall plant is homozygous. If the offspring are a mix of tall and short plants, then the original tall plant is heterozygous. This is because if the tall plant is homozygous, all its offspring will inherit the tall allele from it and be tall. However, if it is heterozygous, some offspring will inherit the short allele from the short plant and be short.