Research done by: Micole Akes Alyssa Russell Layne Shelton Nina Abon

Purpose The purpose was to examine whether or not anthocyanin pigmentation, erecta phenotype, and trichome number are discrete or continuous traits "Target." The University of Nottingham. 25/Oct/ Apr 2009.

Hypothesis We predicted that anthocyanin pigmentation and trichome number were continuous traits and that the erecta phenotype was a discreet trait. Cliften, Paul. "Molecular Genetics." Utah State University. 25/OCT/ Apr 2009.

Results The Petri dish plants did not survive long enough to obtain any meaningful data There was a much larger margin of success for the plants growing in the pots, and we were able to take trichome counts from each line. However we were not able to observe anthocyanin pigment in the leaves, because very few survived within the microfuge tube set up. While errecta phenotype and flowering were both observed in several of our lines, not enough of the lines had matured enough to make the data useable.

"Wikipedia Commons." Wikipedia. 30 Apr 2009.

Petri Dishes Line sprouted. All in yellow. All sprouts yellowNo change sprouted. Some true leaf growth. 2 yellow. 4 with LARGE true leaves. Small orange spot growing. Four sprouts with continued healthy growth. Roots forming and a second set of leaves growing. Four remain with healthy growth sprouted. Mold growing. Green, black, and orange mold growing. One sprout with true leaves. Another with yellow leaves. One sprout. Yellow. No change. 942 sprouted. 1 sprout with yellow true leaves. Yellow sprout.No change sprouted. Mold growth. 1 sprout with true leaves. Orange spot growing. No change. Single sprout. Continued mold growth sprouted. Green. 3 with small true leaves. All other sprouts yellow. One sprout with healthy growth. All others yellow. No change sprouted. All yellow. All sprouts yellow or white. All yellow.No change sprouted. Vibrant green. 1 sprout with true leaves, No change sprouted. Mold growth. True leaf growth on 5 of 8 sprouts. 5 sprouts with healthy growth. 5 remain with healthy growth. 183(143 in 2 nd treatment) All sprouted Seven sprouts with true leaves. All green. Seven sprouts with continued good growth. No change. ColumbiaMost sprouted All have true leaves. Very green. All doing well. Roots forming. Sprouts turning yellow. LandsbergFew sprouted.One yellow sprout.No change. Our Petri dish sprouts did not survive long enough to provide us with useable data, showing us that this is not an effective way to run this experiment.

Average Trichome Count Line None? Columbia18.2 Landsberg8.6

Conclusion We found that our hypothesis that trachoma number and anthocyanin pigmentation were continuous traits was correct. The number of the trichomes varied across the individual plants for each lines and the averages varied across the lines. The anthocyanin pigmentation was present in only two lines and only in very trace amounts. Also, our hypothesis that the erecta phenotype was a discreet trait was also correct. Two lines exhibited the non-erecta phenotype. There were no intermediate forms of the phenotype.