Plant Genetics - From Mendel's Peas to Your Tasty Tomatoes with Lisa Marun, SD Master Gardener

At the June 15, 2024, hybrid general meeting of the San Diego Horticultural Society Lisa Marun presented a fascinating overview of "Plant Genetics - From Mendel's Peas to Your Tasty Tomatoes".

Part history, part science, and part storytelling, Lisa shares how our knowledge of plant genetics has changed over time, why some plants offer "volunteers" right and left in your garden, and how you can play matchmaker with your plants. 

Lisa starts off with a review of long-forgotten high school Genetics 101 and reintroduces our friend Gregor Mendel and more specifically talks about the unexpected variety of ways that flowering plants pass on their traits, and how we can leverage this knowledge by doing our own garden experiments. What could go wrong? Depending on your perspective, a lot! But that's part of the fun!

Lisa is among other things a UCCE Master Gardener and she is also a former co-editor of our newsletter, Let's Talk Plants! with Susan Starr. In fact, here's a link to an interesting article by Lisa in our newsletter from 2017 about the behind the scenes at the Carlsbad Flower Fields where plant genetics play a vital role.

https://www.sdhortnews.org/post/2017/...

And here's a link to an article she wrote that originally appeared in the October 8, 2022, edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune about "Globally or Locally, Seeds Connect us to New Generations".

https://www.mastergardenersd.org/glob...

Join the San Diego Horticultural Society at SDHort.org and Let's Talk Plants!
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