Final answer:
To determine whether a pea plant with purple flowers is homozygous or heterozygous, perform a test cross by crossing it with a homozygous recessive plant. If any offspring have white flowers, the plant is heterozygous. If all offspring have purple flowers, the plant is homozygous.
Step-by-step explanation:
In order to determine whether a pea plant with purple flowers is homozygous (pp) or heterozygous (Pp), we can perform a test cross. To do this, we need to cross the pea plant in question with a homozygous recessive plant (pp). If any of the offspring have white flowers, that means the plant in question is heterozygous. If all the offspring have purple flowers, then the plant is homozygous.
For example, if we cross the plant with a pea plant that has white flowers (pp), and all the offspring have purple flowers, then we can conclude that the plant in question is homozygous (PP). On the other hand, if any of the offspring have white flowers, then the plant in question is heterozygous (Pp).