Question

a potato farmer has a prize - winning potato. he stores it in a dark warm place and soon the potato starts to sprout. next, he cuts the potato into 3 pieces, so each piece has at least one sprout and plants all three pieces separately into the soil. from these 3 pieces 3 new potato plants form. if this one potato is cut into three pieces to grow three new potato plants would this be sexual or asexual reproduction? hint: would all three plants be identical to the original potato or different?

Explanation:

• Asexual reproduction involves a single parent (no fusion of gametes). Cutting the potato into pieces and growing new plants from them is vegetative propagation (a type of asexual reproduction), where new organisms grow from parts of the parent plant.
• In asexual reproduction, the offspring inherit the exact genetic material of the single parent. Since all three pieces come from the same original potato, the new plants will have the same genetic makeup as the original, so they are identical to it.

Answer:

This is asexual reproduction, and all three plants would be identical to the original potato.