Question

In tomatoes, tall is dominant and short is recessive. Red fruit is dominant and yellow fruit is recessive.

True
False

Answer 1

In tomato genetics, tall plants have either the homozygous dominant (TT) or heterozygous (Tt) genotype, since tall is the dominant trait over short. Both genotypes result in the tall phenotype because the presence of at least one dominant allele (T) will express the tall characteristic.

Step-by-step explanation:

In genetics, the term 'dominant' refers to the trait that is expressed when different alleles of a gene are present. For tomatoes, if tall is the dominant trait and short is the recessive trait, a plant that is homozygous dominant (TT) will exhibit the tall phenotype. Similarly, a heterozygous plant (Tt) will also be tall because the dominant allele (T) masks the effect of the recessive allele (t). Only the homozygous recessive genotype (tt) will result in a short tomato plant. Thus, two different genotypes, TT and Tt, will have the same phenotype, which is tall.