3.5 reproductive technologies in agriculture

Question 1

Selective breeding

Answer 1

-when two plants or two animals of one species have desirable traits that are bred with each other
-the breeder then select the offspring that showed the desirable traits of the parents and breeds them with other individuals with the same traits
-after selectively breeding individuals over several generations, all the offspring will have the desirable traits

Question 2

Artificial vegetative reproduction

Answer 2

-If growers have a plant that has desirable traits, they can take cuttings from it and grow new plants from the cuttings
-Scientist removed individual cells from a desirable plant and placed them in bottles or petri dishes that contain nutrients and growth hormones; once the seedlings have grown roots, they are planted in soil, and the advantage of this type of cloning is that many more clones can be produced from a single plant

Question 3

Grafting

Answer 3

-involves attaching a branch from a desirable tree onto the trunk of another treat that may have excellent roots, but poor fruit
-the branch will grow and eventually produce fruit
-grafting allows, growers to turn one good tree into thousands of copies
-Most varieties of apples, grapes, and peaches are produced by graphing

Question 4

Artificial insemination

Answer 4

-when domestic animals cannot conceive in a normal way as often as farmers would like, they use this technique
-when a veterinarian collects sperm from a male animal and inserts it into a female animal of the same species
-used extensively in agriculture to breed domestic animals with desirable traits
-ex. Dairy cows, used in zoos to maintain or increase population of endangered species

Question 5

Vitro fertilization

Answer 5

-process that builds on artificial insemination
-sperm and several mature eggs are collected from male and female animals with desired traits and fertilization occurs in a lab, in a Petri dish
-once eggs are fertilized, embryos are inserted into many different female cows, and the cows are surrogate mothers because they are not genetically related to embryo

Question 6

Hatcheries

Answer 6

-fish hatcheries use technology to ensure a higher rate of survival in wild fish populations
-they mix eggs and sperm in container, and fertilized eggs are incubated in special trays, and once fish hatch, young are fed before released into wild

Question 7

Recombinant DNA

Answer 7

-involves combining genes from different individuals or different species into a single molecule of DNA.
-biotechnology companies use this technology to produce certain characteristics in organisms or to produce substances from organisms
-through cell division, the new DNA is replicated in millions of daughter cells

Question 8

Genetic engineering in agriculture

Answer 8

-organisms that have been altered are called genetically modified organisms (GMO’s)
-many food crops have been genetically modified to resist spoilage or disease, to delay ripening, or to improve their nutritional content