Blog Assignment Post #7

          The plant we are experimenting with is one of the Brassica Oleracea species, Broccoli Romanesco. Broccoli romanesco is a light green, crunchy vegetable with tons of spiral buds circling to the top. It is similar to the vegetable, broccoflower, which is a cross between broccoli and cauliflower. Its rough texture, is similar to cauliflower, as well as its shape. Its color is a cross between cauliflower and broccoli. It tastes of a cross between a cauliflower and broccoli. Based on those facts, it can be concluded that it descended from a cauliflower and a broccoli. The offspring will have a dominant color because both the "mother" and "father" have a light green color. Based on the size and texture of the traits of "mother" and "father", the offspring could be recessive in small size, big size, hard texture or softer texture. The Broccoli Romanesco will pass its genetic information to its offspring by giving it half of its chromosomes to the offspring while the other parent contributes half of its chromosomes. The offspring will not look exactly like its parent because it developed a DNA based on the new set of chromosomes it acquired. New forms of vegetable from the species Brassica Oleracea came to be because of cross pollination. Though the new offspring from the cross pollination still has the genes of the Brassica Oleracea, it also accumulated new genes of the other species. 

Student Blog Post Assignment #7: One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

Student Blog Post Assignment #7

A recent photo of our first two plants

A recent photo of our third and last plant

A recent photo of the tops of all of our plants

     Over the course of this semester, my group and I have been experimenting with and growing a plant called Brassica Oleracea, specifically the variety broccoli romanesco. After our initial experiment concerning watering the plants with solutions of differing pH, we put down the sodium hydroxide and picked up the shovel, and our currently growing three romanesco plants. These plants started out small and light green, but have been becoming progressively darker and larger. The color of their leaves is one example of a possible trait passed down from our plants ancestors. As seen in the photographs, plants A and B have darker leaves, while plant C has lighter yellowy leaves. While this could simply be an indication of the fact that the first two plants are healthier than the third, it could also demonstrate a variation on the leaf color trait. Plants A and B may have the trait showing dark green leaves in its dominant form, while plant C may have the recessive version.

     It is difficult to predict what the plants' offspring will look like, because without further research, it isn't really possible to pinpoint particular traits. However, if that information was known, the best course of action would be to create a Punnett square. By plugging in the parents plant's genotype you'd  be able to determine the chances of the daughter plant having light or dark leaves. The daughter will not look exactly like the parent plant because in the process of creating the sex cells that form the plant, some traits will be hidden under other traits. This means that certain phenotypes will show in the parent but not in the daughter plant. Crossing over blurs these lines even more by swapping parent alleles.

    

       A wild form of Brassica Oleracea

     While all the forms of Brassica Oleracea are the same species, they have very different appearances. This is because each specific type of plant has adapted and evolve to suit its need based on the conditions it lives under. A brassica oleracea living in the desert is not going to have the same biological needs as a different variety living in the swamps.

Student blog post #7

        Over the past couple of months, we have been experimenting and watching our Broccoli romanesco grow. Romanesco, also known as Romanesque cauliflower or Romanesco broccoli, is an edible flower bud of the species Brassica oleracea. First found in Italy, it is light green in color and made up of small buds, with a crunchy texture. Like many other species of plant, ours has green and yellow leaves that are 6 to 11 inches high. It is similar to cauliflower in texture and shape.  It is also similar to broccoli in color and taste. Broccoli Romanesco is a decedent of both cauliflower and broccoli based on this evidence. Though it is a descendant all three have many differences. They are different due to the procces of meiosis.  Meiosis is the process that results in 4 daughter cells with half the number of chromosomes of the parent cells. Siblings show resemblance to each other because traits are created by both parents genotypes. Alleles also effect certain traits. This creates biodiversity from one plant to the other.

Student Blog Post Assignment #7

Jacob Sweet
12/4/14
Period 5

Student Blog Post Assignment #7: Biodiversity and Uniqueness

A recent photo of our first two plants

A recent photo of our third and last plant

A recent photo of the tops of all of our plants

     The plants we are experimenting with are a type of Brassica oleracea, specifically Broccoli romanesco. Broccoli romanesco is a plant that eventually grows vegetables and has very dark leaves on the plant when it fully matures. By looking at the three of our plants, it is possible that its parents could have held dominant and recessive traits for leaf color since two out of three plants have a darker color of leaves (most likely the dominant trait) than the third (which would hold two recessive traits if this example were true); however, this could simply be because the plants with the darker leaves are healthier. We could predict what the plants' offspring would look like if we knew exactly what their genes were by using punnet squares with the parents' genes. By following the previous example that leaf color is a gene and the recessive one is a lighter shade while the dominant is a darker shade of it then if a heterozygous dark leafed plant bred with our light leafed plant, the offspring would have a 50 percent chance of being heterozygous and a 50 percent chance of being homozygous recessive. Those plants would acquire those traits by receiving the genes from the parents' sex cells. The genetic information in those cells is stored in chromosomes, which are duplicated, separated, and split (in that order) to create sex cells. The plant's offspring will not look exactly like the parent because some of the DNA that it has from its parents is not shown but is still passed on. Also, the plant may hold recessive traits that are not shown but there is a chance that if it breeds with another plant with the recessive trait, the child can have that trait. In addition, the plants' offspring will not all look exactly alike. This is because during meiosis, when the sex cells are being formed, the chromosomes are mixed in different ways (including crossing-over) that allow for a very large variety of possible outcomes to form in that one cell and an even larger variety when considering it can be mixed with each of the other gender's possible outcomes. Even though the varieties of Brassica oleracea being grown are closely related, they look very different. This is because they adapted in many different ways to suit the area they once lived in. So many different forms of the original wild-type Brassica oleracea could have formed because when the plant began to spread to other areas, it adapted. As it began to spread to more and more areas, the differences became quite distinct yet not distinct enough to be unrecognizable, so we now consider them as forms of the original.