A farmer has a new plant that has not been previously domesticated and wants to start breeding it to produce larger fruit. As fruit size is a polygenic trait, what approach should the farmer take in attempting to quickly and efficiently increase the fruit size?
A) Randomly inbreed the plant over multiple generations to produce purebred strains.
B) Perform monohybrid crosses.
C) Send the fruit to a lab for QTL analysis and produce a linkage map.
D) Identify the wild progenitor species and use it to increase the available pool for genetic diversity.
E) Select individual plants that have the desired characteristic and inbreed from them.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Selecting individual plants with the desired characteristic and inbreeding from them is the most efficient way to increase the fruit size of a polygenic trait. Inbreeding will increase the homozygosity of the desired alleles, leading to larger fruit size.

A Farmer Has a New Plant That Has Not Been