Question

A pea plant with purple flowers, when crossed with a plant with white, produced 50 plants with only purple flowers. On selfing these plants produced 482 plants with purple flower and 162 with white flowers. Explain the pattern of inheritance with the help of Punnett square.

Hint:

Punnett squares are useful tools for predicting the inheritance patterns of genetic traits in offspring.

Answer 1

In the first generation (F1), all plants exhibited purple flowers due to the dominance of the purple allele. The second generation (F2) displayed a purple to white flower ratio of approximately 3:1. \[P: PP (purple) \times pp (white) \quad \text{F1: All Pp (purple)} \] Cross of the F2 generation: \[Pp \times Pp \quad \text{yields: PP, Pp, Pp, pp.} \] Phenotypic ratio: 3 purple flowers to 1 white flower.