Pedro planted strawberries together to control environmental variables and calculated mean fruit mass by averaging individual fruit weights. He should cross the two plants with the largest fruits and afterwards grow the offspring to evaluate their traits, using Mendel's laws and probability to guide breeding.
It was essential for Pedro to plant all five strawberry plants in the same part of his garden to ensure consistent growing conditions. This reduces variables such as soil quality, sunlight, water availability, and other environmental factors that could affect the growth and fruit mass, thus allowing a fair comparison of the plants' genetic potential for fruit size.
To find the mean mass of one fruit on Plant A, Pedro would need to weigh all the fruits from Plant A, sum their masses, and then divide by the number of fruits to calculate the average (or mean) mass of fruit for that plant.
Pedro should breed together the two plants with the largest mean fruit mass to increase the probability that their offspring will inherit the genetic traits associated with larger fruit size. Through cross-pollination, which involves transferring pollen from one plant to the stigma of another, Pedro combines the genetic material of the two plants, hoping to produce hybrids that exhibit the desired traits of both parents.
After cross-pollination, Pedro should plant and grow the seeds produced from this breeding to observe their growth and fruit characteristics, ensuring that the young plants are adequately cared for and monitored for the expression of desired traits, applying Mendel's laws and knowledge of probability to guide further selective breeding.