Chapter 576 Mr. Mendel, I'm Sorry

Chapter 577 Mr. Mendel, I’m sorry

"20 years?!"

Joseph suddenly had a dark look on his face. In 20 years' time, France and Britain will have already decided the winner. What's the point of asking for your beets then?

He immediately held out three fingers.

Archard waved his hand and said seriously:

"Your Highness, I am confident that it really won't take 30 years to..."

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"No, three years." Joseph stared at him and said, "I will give you three years and all the support you need to give me new beet varieties!"

"This..." Archard looked embarrassed, "Your Highness, maybe you are not familiar with breeding technology. This requires a lot of attempts and takes a very long time. Even if you give me 50 acres of experimental land and With ample funding, three years is definitely not enough.”

He said, looking at the biology master Brisson on the side as if asking for help.

The latter nodded, coughed slightly and said:

"Your Highness, even if Mr. Archard is very lucky and high-yielding sugar beet seedlings appear in the first year, at least 8 to 10 generations of breeding will be needed to fix their excellent properties, or even more. During this period, traits may be lost, and you have to start all over again.

"So, I think 20 years is indeed a more reasonable number."

"Wait a minute," Joseph was a little surprised when he heard this, "You mean, it takes 10 generations of breeding to fix the traits?"

"Indeed, Your Highness."

"No, you group seedlings with different traits, and after crossing, record the genetic characteristics of the father and mother. Estimate the group of genetic factors that the offspring may obtain, then cultivate them separately, observe the traits, and continue cross-breeding. Even if recessiveness is considered Genes, at most two or three generations will tell whether the required genetic characteristics have been obtained..."

As Joseph spoke, he felt that the expressions of the biologists in front of him were wrong, as if they had just been hit on the head by a stone.

His heart tightened. Mendel seemed not to have been born yet, and the theory of hybrid inheritance was nowhere to be seen. No wonder it was so difficult for them to breed a new variety.

Seeing him stop, Brisson asked tentatively:

"Your Highness, what is the 'heredity' you just mentioned?"

Archard listened more carefully and asked more questions:

"There are also 'genetic factors' and 'recessive genes'. What does this mean?"

Joseph took a deep breath, looked up at the sky, made the sign of the cross on his chest, and began to "perform" skillfully:

“Thank God for the revelation, these are all inspirations given by the Lord.”

When Archad and the others followed suit and made the sign of the cross, he continued:

"The so-called 'heredity' means that parents will mix their characteristics and pass them on to their offspring. On the other hand, all characteristics of offspring must come from their parents."

Archard lowered his head and digested it for a while, then immediately raised an objection: "Your Highness, but white beets and yellow beets will breed red beets..."

"Yes, so this involves the issue of 'recessive genes'."

Joseph simply picked up a pen and paper, asked the three biologists to sit around him, began to recall the middle school biology course, and secretly apologized to Mr. Mendel in his heart.

"This represents genetic factors, which should actually be called chromosomes. However, that one is more troublesome to talk about, so let's just talk about genetic factors.

“The genetic factors of all organisms come from half of each parent, and any traits displayed by organisms are determined by genetic factors.

"And some genetic traits contradict each other. For example..."

He pointed to Eman who was standing beside him: "Whether a person has double eyelids or single eyelids, he cannot have both single eyelids and double eyelids.

"When his parents each give him half of the single-eyelid factor, he will definitely have single-eyelids. Otherwise, he will have double-eyelids.

“But if one parent gives him half an odd number and the other half gives him a double pair, it depends on which gene is dominant and which is recessive.

"Let me tell you the answer directly. Double eyelids are a dominant gene. So in the above situation, the child must have double eyelids. Because the dominant gene shows the special gene, the recessive gene does not."

He looked around at the few people who had confused and suspicious faces, and he patiently introduced the basic concepts of biological inheritance until it got dark, and finally talked about the issue of dominant and recessive genes.

The youngest Archard has a relatively strong ability to accept new things. He suddenly clapped his hands and said excitedly:

"I understand, Your Highness! So the red color is a recessive gene in beet, and will be masked by the white or yellow gene.

"If white and yellow beets carry half of the red gene, and the red gene happens to be passed on to the offspring during crossbreeding, then red beets will grow! And this also explains why the probability of red beets appearing is the lowest!"

"You understand that exactly."

At this time, both Brisson and Bosque restrained their doubtful thoughts. They used His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's theory in their minds to solve the problems they had encountered before, and found that many of them had been explained.

It is very possible that these "genes" and "hidden" knowledge are not the imagination of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!

Archard continued to draw inferences: "So, when I need the yellow trait, I can't just cross two yellow beets, because they may carry recessive genes. According to probability, I have to group the offspring into... Wait, I Need to calculate..."

He picked up a pen and paper and began to write and draw, muttering: "No wonder it was so difficult to fix the traits before, it turns out that there are recessive genes mixed in..."

He quickly calculated the result, looked up at Joseph, his eyes full of excitement and excitement: "Your Highness, with your theoretical assistance, perhaps within three years, we can really breed a beet variety with a sugar content of 12%!"

Joseph nodded with relief: "It's too late, let's go to dinner first. Tomorrow I will tell you about the 'law of separation' and the 'law of free combination', which may be more helpful for you to breed new varieties."

...

A week later.

After a full day of genetics study, Archard left the Tuileries Palace tired and excited.

What also excited him was that in the morning, Dean Leroy came to inform him personally that according to the re-evaluation of the Talent Committee, he would be formally invited, and his talent level was D.

You know, among the introduced talents who have never made any academic contributions, D is basically the highest level.

Just as he was about to board the carriage assigned to him by the Talent Committee, he saw his fellow villager August G.K. Bach waving and jogging towards him.

"Why are you here?" He simply bowed and greeted, "Would you like to take my car back?"

Bach hesitated for a long time, and finally said with a bitter face: "I think you should change hotels."

"What happened?"

"Actually, Miss Marian's brother left an invitation for you at the hotel. His sister is getting engaged next week..."