Question

Puneet wanted to grow banana plants.

1. Based on your knowledge on plant reproduction should he opt for seeds or any alternate method of reproduction? Justify your answer.
2. Offsprings of a banana plant usually show very little variation. What causes variation and are variations good or bad? Justify.

Answer 1

1. Puneet should not choose seeds, as banana plants have lost the capacity to produce seeds. He should go for vegetative propagation of banana (by stem cutting).
2. Errors and variations in DNA copying cause variation. Variation is good, as it can help a population tide over unfavourable conditions by survival of some variants. It is bad, as parents desirable characters are lost; sometimes variants are not able to survive in the new conditions; the variant is not able to use the cellular apparatus efficiently.