Question

Locate two cultivars of a plant species you are familiar with. How (if possible) can morphological tests help you distinguish between the two cultivars? Explain in detail.

Answer 1

Alphonso, Bennet Alphonso, Bangalora are some of the cultivars of Mango available here. Morphological identification of cultivars is a traditional way of variety identification by observing and recording morphological characters and descriptors. This approach is time-consuming, less precise, and less informative. For example, potato consists of 50 characters, out of which 12 deal with sprouting, along with a series of characters such as plant height, leaf size and shape, and various features of flowers and tubers. The same characters apply to many other crop species. This traditional approach is still used for official testing of distinctness, uniformity, and stability as required for the grant of Plant Breeders Rights and official variety/cultivar registration. Moreover, morphological characters are often multigenic, influenced by the environment, and not available at all stages thus making it difficult to assess them quickly and objectively, and requiring repeated observations.