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Today in lab we looked at two different sets of plants, one "standard" and one "petite." We wanted to discover what factors were influenced by genes, which were influenced by the environment, and if there were any effected by both. Our findings indicated the following:

Height is effected by both genetics and the environment. Stardard plants were consistently taller than petite plants. However, the height varied between the standard plants based on their conditions.

Leaf color is a characteristic purely effected by the environment. We looked at the petite and the standard plants in high light and low fertilizer and discovered that they both had purple leaves at the bottom. Low fertilizer, low light plants also had purple stems, but none of the standard or petite plants that weren't in low fertilizer had purple.

Finally, we counted the petiolar trichromes and discovered that they are a purely genetic trait. They existed solely on standard plants, regardless of conditions, and not at all on petite plants. The number of hairs on the standard plants is as follows:

High light low fertilizer: 6

High light high fertilizer: 14

Low light high fertilizer: 5

Low light low fertilizer: 8

From this, we can see that while the presence of hairs is genetic the number of hairs is effected by the environment.