Selective Breeding in Plants and Animals
Selective Breeding in Plants
Desired Characteristics plants are bred for:
- Decorative plants are selectively bred for colour.
- Food plants are selectively bred for better yield.
- Most plants are selectively bred to be hardier.
- Most plants are selectively bred for resistance against disease.
- Some plants are selectively bred for fragrance.
- Some plants are selectively bred for texture and taste.
Breeding for Characteristics
The definition of selective breeding is:
The breeder would breed two adults that have the desired characteristic, then he would keep on breeding the younger generations, choosing the offspring with the strongest sense of that characteristic and thus as the generations get further and further the characteristic being breed for would become stronger.
Selective breeding can also allow the combination of two adults feature for example if you wanted an orange coloured plant you could breed a red and a yellow coloured plant to get the genes to have a co - dominant relationship.
Selective Breeding in Plants (notes)
In farming the farmers need to make the most profit that is possible so they breed the plants to get offspring that give a very high yield. To breed the plants they must put them in controlled conditions to stop any contamination from any other pollen. Then the plants are pollinated by the farmers using a brush to ensure that the right plants are pollinated.
The ways they can increase the yield is by selectively breeding the plant so that the piece we eat for example the carrot will grow very big. We could decrease the size of the part we don’t eat so more growth happens in the part we eat,
Breed it so it grows faster and lastly improve the looks of the crop so it is more desirable.
Selective plant breeding can cause problems as when selectively breeding it can also create different characteristic that are undesired for example like a miracle rice it may need lots of nutrients to grow thus is impossible for some to grow thus useless.
B5b.1a The process of selective breeding
