The Story Of The Seed

The Story Of The Seed

Blog #1: Our brief bio.

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Since we’re going to be posting every now and then, let’s get to know the bloggers:

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My name is Julissa Meza and I am originally from Mexico. My family lives in Mexico and both of my parents families have worked in the field growing tomatoes, corn, radishes, etc. My grandparents still live in a small town and sometimes cultivate.

I don't have much experience on cultivating but when i was in preschool we planted beans in a little plastic cup with cotton. My mom is not a fan of plants so she threw it away after a couple of weeks. I still wanted to have flowers or something that would give life to our house, so i planted again beans but this time in a pot. Unfortunately my plant got a plague and since we did not know much about taking care of plants we had to let it die. I have never planted flowers but i would like to, especially sunflowers or margaritas.

When my mom was little she went to the paddock with her father and helped him to plant onions and radishes to sell in her village. It's weird that she grew up cultivating and she threw away my plants.

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Hello, my name is Ella Zamudio. I’ve never moved and I’m from San Jose, California.

As far as experience with growing food goes, our family isn’t really known for it. However, we recently started to grow trees in our backyard, we have apple, orange, lemon, and cherry trees. We’re also growing green beans, kiwi, pomegranate and more. That’s what my family (mother and father) grow while I’m at school or doing homework. I’ve only grown one thing and that was a sunflower. Our part of the family is a “farming wannabe”, however I do have relatives that were/are farmers. A prime example is my grandparents, they’ve been growing food since forever. They do it as a hobby since they are on retirement and don’t sell any produce.

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 My name is Abigail Paradise. I was born and raised in San Jose, California. I garden all the time but the real gardener in my family is my mom.                                  

 She has turned our back and front yard into an amazing supplier of fresh fruit and vegetables. We grow a large variety of plants. From figs, oranges and grapes to pumpkins, olives and tomatoes. Every fall we carve our own pumpkins and wash, season and bake the pumpkin seeds. As I said before my mom is the gardener of the family she says her gardening is like “freestyle” in other words she likes to go with the flow when gardening. My brother is the chef of the family he makes spectacular food with a kick (kick meaning spicy!) My brother Harrison's cooking plus my Mom's gardening is everything and more.

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My name is Maleah Armenta and l live in San Jose, California. 

All my life at my house my family has had a backyard garden. There, we grow lemons, pomegranates, tomatoes, strawberries, squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. That’s pretty much all the food that grows in my backyard garden. My father and Grandpa were the ones who taught me farming. My dad showed me how to make a garden but I don't remember a lot of what we did. We also stopped doing it because our daily schedules we couldn't continue the garden so now we just have lemon trees and a pomegranate tree for now in the backyard garden.

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Abby:

Question 1:

Our plant has grown significantly since we last  checked up on it. This is Because of a number of things. It all starts with cell division also known as mitosis. This is a process that is in charge development and growth within a eukaryotic cell. There are five stages of mitosis.  prophase, interphase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. There is also  cytokinesis when the cell actually splits.  In prophase Chromosomes become visible, the nucleolus disappears, the mitotic spindle forms, and the nuclear envelope disappears. Chromosomes become more coiled and can be viewed under a microscope! In interphase cellular organelles double in number, the DNA replicates, and protein synthesis occurs. The chromosomes are not visible and the DNA appears as uncoiled chromatin. In metaphase the microtubules of the spindle have attached and the chromosomes have lined up on the metaphase plate. In anaphase each sister chromatid of a chromosome has spindle fibers attached to it. These spindle fibers begin to shorten and pull the sister chromatids apart at the centromere. The chromosomes during anaphase usually have a V shape.

Next is photosynthesis a process that provides our plant with food. The plant does this when photons from sunlight shines through the leaf of the plant it creates  chlorophyll and activates electrons. Water is split into oxygen and hydrogen ions. The activated electrons then go through an electron transport chain. Then an accumulation of hydrogen ions goes to the thylakoid membrane generating a proton gradient. ATP is formed when ADP and P come together. The electrons going through the electron transport chain combine with NADP+  to form NADPH. NADPH is an energy-rich molecule. Next if there is a dark reaction this reaction uses the energy from the light reaction to convert carbon dioxide into glucose this is known as the Calvin cycle.

Finally we have cellular respiration. Cellular respiration  is the process of oxidizing food molecules, like glucose, to carbon dioxide and water. The energy released is trapped in the form of ATP for use by all the energy-consuming activities of the cell. The process occurs in two parts: glycolysis, the breakdown of glucose to pyruvic acid.

Question 2:

The cell begins protein synthesis when certain enzymes are needed. A signal will be sent to the nucleus, the cell will begin to produce more proteins to make enzymes.  RNA Polymerase’s job is to unzip the the double helix of DNA that codes for the needed protein, 
it then makes a complementary strand to one of the DNA strands, then re-zips the double helix.  The mRNA will travel outside the nucleus, where a ribosomes will attach jthemselves. The ribosomes read the codons of mRNA, and tRNA and bring the matching amino acid for each of the triplet codons. These two processes are called transcription and translation.  At the end of translation, all the amino acids specified by the mRNA codons will have formed a protein.

This image shows the anthers surrounding the stigma on a flower. The anther is the part of the flower where the pollen is produced. The stigma is the part of the flower where pollen germinates. When both the female and male parts are visible in the same flower the flower is thought to be "excellent ".

This photo shows the stamen of the flower. The stamen is the pollen producer. It usually has a slender filament supporting the anther. It's the male reproductive anatomy of the flower, it consists of a stock known as the filament and at the end of the stalk is a part called the anther

This picture shows the female anatomy of a flower known as the carpel The carpel is a structure that produces egg cells and protects a developing baby plant. The three main parts of a carpel are the stigma, style, and ovary.

 This is an image of the flower with the stamens, sepals, petals and the top of the carpel removed, leaving it was just the ovary and ovules. You can see the inside of the ovary and its many ovules.

    When ripe pollen from an anther of the same kind of flower catches on the stigma, each pollen grain sends out a tiny threadlike tube. The tube grows down through the style and pierces one of the ovules in the ovary. This process is called fertilization.

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A Matter of Selection:

1. Which part (anatomy) or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to exhibit the most variation (greatest number of different forms)? Which part or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to show the greatest range of variation (biggest difference between one extreme and its opposite)? Use and include data collected from multiple measurements to support your answer.
2. Using the terms that follow, explain why you think there is so much variability in the domestic forms of Brassica oleracea: traits, selective breeding, artificial selection, genes, descent with modification, natural variations, mutations
3. Which part (anatomy) of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to be most consistently the same in all of the examples in our garden, regardless of how extreme the differences between other parts of the same plants may be? Why do think this is so? Again, use and include data collected from multiple measurements to support your answer.
4. What would plant breeders have to do in order to get the body part or characteristic you described above (in your response to question #3) to become much different than it is presently?