Farming, Food, and Heredity

Corn’s wild ancestor: Teosinte 10,000 years ago, farmers in Mexico began domesticating wild grass called Teosinte. They saved seeds from plants with the best kernels. Seeds were replanted. The process was repeated for thousands of years and modern day corn evolved.

What’s the Difference Between a Strawberry and a Strawberry? strwbrry.html strwbrry.html

Congratulations! You have inherited a tomato farm. The bad news: fungus has infected and killed most of your tomato plants. The good news: A small number of tomato plants have survived and are not sick. Why do you think some plants survived while others died?

Mapping your breeding plan… How can you use plant breeding to breed a new crop of tomatoes for next year that are less likely to be killed by this fungus? Part 1: Use illustrations to map out a step-by-step plan that shows: a) How you will carry out your tomato breeding plan b) What you think your tomato fields will look like next year if the same fungus attacks your plants.

Part 2: Several years have passed with great tomato crops. However, this year, a different type of fungus has appeared. a) Draw what happens to your tomato plants and explain why. b) How does having many different traits within a population help that population survive? c) How do you think your map would have been different if all of the tomato plants in the field had the exact same traits?