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 in a high school student tone.
To determine whether a tall pea plant is homozygous or heterozygous, we can perform a cross-pollination experiment. First, we need to select a known homozygous tall pea plant and crossbreed it with the plant in question. If the offspring resulting from this cross shows a mix of tall and short plants, it indicates that the plant being tested is heterozygous. Conversely, if all the offspring are tall, then the tested plant is likely homozygous. This experiment helps us distinguish between the two types of alleles (T and t) responsible for height in pea plants.
