Every spring within a week of plant emergence, the gardener needs to walk throug

Question

Every spring within a week of plant emergence, the gardener needs to walk through his popcorn nursery (field). Each row (12.5 ft long) is from a specific ear (from a F2, F3, F4, etc.) or is a population (F1 or is the F2) with about 16 plants in each row. Among the items of interest are albino plants. Albino plants fail to make chlorophyll, are all white, and die about 10 days after emergence (once they exhaust their energy reserves in the endosperm of the seed).

a) If you see 3 albino plants (out of 16 in the row), what is the probability (answer is a value between 1.0 and 0) that a given remaining plant, when selfed, will produce progeny that will segregate for the albino trait?

b) If you see 7 albino plants (out of 17 in the row), what is the probability (answer is a value between 1.0 and 0) that a given remaining plant does not carry a mutant allele?

Explanation / Answer

Answer

a. total no. of plants = 16

no. of albino plants =3, remaining 13 are non-albino plants.

out of 13, 8 hetreozygotes when selfed will produce the albino trait (using the theory of dihybrid cross and considering one allele as wild-type and the other as mutant ).

So, the probability of segregation of the albino trait is 8/13 = 0.6 (approx.)

b. total no. of plants = 17

no. of albino plants =7, remaining 10 are non-albino plants. Using the theory of dihybrid cross (like above), it is observed that 4 combinations (which are homozygous dominant for the wild-type allele, for eg. AABb) do not contain the mutant allele. So, probability becomes, 4/10 = 0.4.

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