The easiest characters, or traits, to deal with are those involving discontinuous, or qualitative, differences that are governed by one or a few major genes. Many such inherited differences exist, and they frequently have profound effects on plant value and utilization. Examples are starchy versus sugary kernels (characteristic of field and sweet corn, respectively) and determinant versus indeterminant habit of growth in green beans (determinant varieties are adapted to mechanical harvesting). Such differences can be seen easily and evaluated quickly, and the expression of the traits remains the same regardless of the environment in which the plant grows. Traits of this type are termed highly heritable.
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "plant breeding" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.