Question

During an experiment, a scientist crosses a pea plant that has purple flowers with a pea plant that has white flowers. The plants that result from this cross in the F1 generation have both purple and white flowers. What can the scientist conclude?

Answer 1

That the dominant colour was in a heterozygotic plant, and the recessive in a homozygotic plant (by necessity).

Explanation:

Let's say the dominant colour is purple (P) and the recessive colour is white (w).
The purple plant may be `PP or Pw`
The white plant can only be `ww`

Then we have `Pwxxww->Pworww=`flowers of both colours

A homozygotic purple would only produce purple flowers:

`PPxxww->Pw=` purple