Through the past couple of months of our class growing the Brassica Oleracea plants, there have been many different variations and changes that the plant have gone through. I would have to say that the characteristic that has the most change is the color and shape of our classes leaves of the plants. Common aspects of the Brassica Oleracea online and seeing pictures have been the normal green with white stems but as I have seen from our classes plants is that most of the plants have different colors to the leaves and the stems. As you can see in the first picture below the color of the stem is clearly green but as you look at the second picture the stems look more red/pink. Also, as you can see in the first picture, the leaves look way more smooth and they also look thick. In the second picture, the leaves look to have ridged edges and they look more thin than the other plant in picture one. The length of the leaves is also very different so you may be able to see. In the first picture I measured the leaves to be about 12 inches for each leaf. In the second picture I measured the leaves to all be about 6 inches for each leaf. The comparison between the plant in picture one and the plant in picture two is that the first plant has thicker, greener, and longer leaves while the second plant has thinner, less green, and shorter plants. Other than these two pictures, many of the other plants have many different lengths, colors, and shape.
Our class garden has a lot of variation because of something called traits. Traits are the different characteristics that any living thing has. An example of traits is simple humans. Humans are all the same species but we do not all look exactly alike because of traits that we inherent from our parents that make us look different from everyone else. Traits are a result that come from genes. Genes are a form of heredity that is transferred to us from our parents. Genes are the reason why we usually look like both of our parents because we inherit some traits from our parents. As an example we could have the same eyes as our dad and the same nose as our mom. Traits are genes that create the genotype which is also code for phenotype which is the physical appearance of any living organism. When in biology, the genotypes and phenotypes of plants can be described by the term natural variation. Natural variation can connect to the terms artificial selection and selective breeding. Brassica Oleracea contains plants like cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, etc. In the cooking world, people growing these plants want the most out of their harvest for the season. More often than not, farmers try to find the best traits for each of the plants and try to find a way to modify the plants so that they have the "correct" traits. In the sentence before is exactly what artificial selection and selective breeding mean. To some it up, they basically mean for people, most specifically farmers, to change the traits of plants so that they are all the same and so the none are too different or different in general. In terms of variation, the last topic I want to talk about is mutations. Most plants get the genes of their parents which is decent with modification. Sometimes there are mistakes when the DNA is passed which leads to mutations which are changes to the structure of a gene. This leads to organisms having special traits. An example of a mutation is a cow with an extra leg. There are some types of mutations that can actually be harmful to the organism but that isn't very common.
A very common trait in all the leaves of all the plants, despite how big the differences are, are the vein pattern. The common vein pattern is one big vein in the middle and a lot of small veins going towards that outside of the leaf. If you look closely in the pictures below, in the first and second picture you see the exact same vein pattern, despite one having more than the other, they still have the exact same pattern of one big vein down the middle and little veins going from the big vein to the outside of the leaf. I believe that the simplest thing to do to change the pattern is to use artificial selection. Artificial selection is mostly used to increase the size of foods in not only America but some other countries as well. These foods are GMO's, also known as, genetically modified organisms and is debated to cause bad diseases, such as cancer. The people who make GMO's just do it to get more money from making their foods bigger and they aren't aware of the serious consequences it can have. Organism usually get their genes from their parents but in this situations, their genes are modified to what the farmer wants. In conclusion, in about ten years, most likely, the vein pattern of Brassica Oleracea will be changed by artificial selection.
