EXERCISE NO.

5 Crop Improvement

CROP SCIENCE 1100

SECTION:

1. Acquire any type of flower from your yard. Separate each part carefully, take a
photo of each part, and paste appropriately on the boxes below. After taping all the
parts identify if the flower you got was perfect or imperfect. Defend your answer.

Calyx Petals Anthers

Filament Pollen grains Stigma

Style Ovary Pedicel

Is your flower specimen perfect or imperfect? Defend your answer concisely.

The flower specimen I've used for this laboratory is gumamela, or China
rose (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis). Flowers containing male and female reproductive organs
(stamen and pistil) are perfect or bisexual, hermaphrodite, or hermaphroditic. By
contrast, those with only stamen or pistil are imperfect or unisexual, regardless of
whether sepal or petal is present or absent. Flowers consist of four distinct components:
petals, sepals, stamens, and pistils. Flowers that are incomplete lack one or more of
these four components. While a perfect flower can be incomplete, an imperfect flower is
incapable of being complete. Gumamela is a perfect complete flower because it
contains both sexual parts (stamen and pistil) and includes four flower parts: petals,
sepals, stamen, and pistil.

Is it Monoecious or Dioecious? Defend your answer briefly.

Gumamela is monoecious because it has male and female flowers on the same
plant or flowers on every plant containing both male and female reproductive
components.

Given this morphology of the flower you have dissected, what will be its most probable
mode of pollination? Defend your answer.

In the wild, insects or birds move pollen from the stamen to the stigma pads on
the petals of the hibiscus flower. Each hibiscus flower has unique features that attract
pollinators, such as bright colors and a bull's-eye pattern that leads to the flower's deep
throat. The flower has a deep throat, stamen, and a significant stigma that pollinators
bump into as they look for nectar. Pollen adheres to the pollinator and is transferred to
the female parts of the same or a different flower.
EXERCISE NO. 5 Crop Improvement
When pollen from the flower's male parts pollinates the female parts of the same
blossom, the flower can self-pollinate. Hibiscus pollen grows on the stamen, the male
part of the plant. It then moves to the stigma pads on the pistil, which are the female
parts of the plant. This happens because the pollen from the pistil makes its way to the
ovules of the ovary from there. If the flower is pollinated, a seedpod starts to form at the
base of the flower as it grows. About a dozen seeds will fall out of a pod that is going to
dry out in six to 14 weeks.

2. Select a crop of your interest. Identify the most recent varieties of your chosen
crop. In 400 words, write a report on the identifying characteristic or the recent
variety and how it was developed.

Everyone loves a good coffee because of its robust flowery, nutty, smoky, and herby
aroma. We can taste the bitterness and sweetness as we savor the natural flavor.

Coffee beans grow in over 50 countries in a relatively narrow belt between the
Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The temperature, humidity, and precipitation are just
right, with cool to warm tropical climates, rich soils, and few pests or diseases. Coffee
plants grow best in areas with about 1 to 1.5 meters of annual rainfall that falls evenly.
You get the best coffee from higher-up elevations 3,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level.

But as decades pass, too much cultivation has created enormous problems with
coffee production. It has caused a significant impact on our environment and climate,
especially with the input product that we need to sustain the growth of the crops. And as
the climate crisis changes the temperature and rainfall patterns worldwide, the most
highly sought-after coffee bean can be gone.

The plant is stenophylla coffee or Coffea stenophylla, a wild and relatively rare
species found in Upper West Africa. Researchers visited Sierra Leone between 2017
and 2019; they've traveled to track stenophylla in the wild and on farms. Initial fieldwork
was unsuccessful, and they soon became aware that they were dealing with a scarce
plant. The last official sighting of stenophylla in Sierra Leone was in 1954. The
stenophylla plant grows between 200 and 700 m.a.s.l. Its growth cycle is closely linked
to rainfall in the area. During drier seasons, stenophylla enters a state of near-dormancy
EXERCISE NO. 5 Crop Improvement
until rainfall stimulates flowering and vegetative growth resumes. Its star-shaped flowers
have seven to nine white, petal-like lobes (arabica and robusta usually have five lobes),
and its leaves are distinctive; one of the common names for C. stenophylla is 'narrow-
leaved coffee.'

Another distinguishing characteristic is that the fruits are black when ripe, which is
useful for identifying stenophylla plants in the wild. The fruit of the stenophylla plant
grows very slowly for six to eight weeks. After this, they grow in size very quickly, and
their water content can increase by 85%. The seeds within the fruit take another 30 to
35 weeks to fully mature. However, stenophylla plants may have more excellent
resistance to drought than the other main coffee crop species, as indicated by the
growing conditions where the plant has been found naturally in other regions of West
Africa. In Ivory Coast (at Ira Forest), C. stenophylla occurs on the upper, drier parts of
hills; in the same location, C. canephora and C. liberica are found in the valleys (i.e., the
lower, wetter areas). The sites for this species in Ivory Coast are generally drier than [in]
Sierra Leone, with rainfall in the region of 1,500–1,700mm per year, a 3–4 months dry
season, and an average annual temperature of 25.5°C.
EXERCISE NO. 5 Crop Improvement
REFERENCES

Ben. (2022, April 10). Flower types: Complete vs. incomplete, Perfect vs. imperfect, etc.
Crops Review. Retrieved April 26, 2022, from https://www.cropsreview.com/flower-
types/

Contributor, S. F. G. (2021, August 16). How is the Hibiscus pollinated? Home Guides |
SF Gate. Retrieved April 26, 2022, from https://homeguides.sfgate.com/hibiscus-
pollinated-32980.html

Grant, T. (2020, December 10). What is Coffea stenophylla? Perfect Daily Grind.
Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://perfectdailygrind.com/2020/12/what-is-
coffea-stenophylla/

Kemkaran, L. (2019). Full of beans - rediscovering the lost coffee of Sierra Leone.
National Resources Institute . Retrieved April 27, 2022, from
https://www.nri.org/latest/news/2019/full-of-beans-rediscovering-the-lost-coffee-of-
sierra-leone

Krosch, S. (2020, May 13). Perfect and imperfect flower dissections. Iowa Agriculture
Literacy Foundation. Retrieved April 26, 2022, from
https://www.iowaagliteracy.org/Article/Perfect-and-Imperfect-Flower-Dissections

Sapkota, A. (2021, February 4). Monocot vs Dicot flower- definition, structure, 6