I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 577 I'm sorry, Mr. Mendel
"20?!"

Joseph's face was suddenly filled with black lines. In 20 years, the victory and defeat of France and Britain would have been decided. What would be the use of your beets then?

He immediately held up three fingers.

Archard waved his hand and said seriously:
"Your Highness, I am confident that it will not take 30 years to..."

"No, three years." Joseph stared at him and said, "I will give you three years, and all the support you need to give me new varieties of beets!"

"This..." Archard looked embarrassed. "Your Highness, perhaps you are not familiar with breeding technology. This requires a lot of attempts and a very long time. Even if you give me 50 acres of experimental land and sufficient funds, three years is definitely not enough."

As he spoke, he looked to the biology master Brisson beside him for help.

The latter nodded, coughed lightly and said:

"Your Highness, even if Mr. Archard is very lucky and produces high-yield beet seedlings in the first year, it will take at least 8 to 10 generations of breeding, or even more, to fix its excellent properties. During this period, there is a possibility that the traits will be lost, and then we have to start all over again.

"So, I think 20 years is indeed a more reasonable number."

"Wait a minute," Joseph was a little surprised. "You mean, it takes 10 generations of breeding to fix the trait?"

"Indeed, Your Highness."

"No, you group seedlings with different traits, and after crossing them, record the genetic characteristics of the father and mother. Estimate the genetic factor groups that the offspring may obtain, then culture them separately, observe the traits, and continue cross-breeding. Even if you take recessive genes into account, it will only take two or three generations to know whether the required genetic characteristics have been obtained..."

As Joseph spoke, he felt that the expressions of the biologists in front of him were not right, as if they had just been hit on the head by a rock.

His heart tightened. Oh no! It seemed as if Mendel had not been born yet, and the theory of hybrid inheritance was even more nonexistent. No wonder it was so difficult for them to breed a new variety.

Brisson saw him stop and asked tentatively:
"Your Highness, what do you mean by 'heredity'?"

Archard listened more carefully and asked more questions:
"And 'genetic factors' and 'recessive genes', what do these mean?"

Joseph took a deep breath, looked up at the sky, made the sign of the cross on his chest, and began to "perform" skillfully:
“Thank God for the revelation. This is all inspiration from the Lord.”

When Archad and the others also crossed themselves, he continued:

"The so-called 'inheritance' means that both parents will mix their own characteristics and pass them on to their offspring. Conversely, all the characteristics possessed by the offspring must come from both parents."

Archard lowered his head to digest the information for a while, then immediately raised an objection: "Your Highness, but white beets and yellow beets can produce red beets..."

"Right, so this involves the issue of 'recessive genes'."

Joseph simply picked up a pen and paper, asked the three biologists to sit around him, and began to recall the high school biology course, and secretly apologized to Mr. Mendel in his heart.

"This stands for genetic factors, which should actually be called chromosomes. However, that is more complicated to explain, so let's just talk about genetic factors.

“All organisms have half of their genetic genes from each parent, and any traits displayed by an organism are determined by genetic genes.

"And some genetic traits contradict each other. For example..."

He pointed at Ai Mang who was standing beside him and said: "A person can have double eyelids or single eyelids. He can't have both single and double eyelids. "When his parents each gave him half of the single eyelid gene, he must have single eyelids. Otherwise, he will have double eyelids.

"But if one of the parents gave him half single and the other gave him half double, it depends on which one is the dominant gene and which one is the recessive gene.

"Let me tell you the answer directly. Double eyelids are a dominant gene. So in the above case, the child will definitely have double eyelids. This is because dominant genes show special features, while recessive genes do not."

He looked around at the people who were confused and suspicious, and then patiently introduced the basic concepts of biological genetics until dark, and finally talked about the issue of dominant and recessive genes.

The youngest Archad was actually quite good at accepting new things. He suddenly clapped his hands and said excitedly:

"I see, Your Highness! So the red color is a recessive gene in beets, which will be masked by the white or yellow gene.

"If white and yellow beets carry half of the red gene, and when they are crossed, they happen to pass the red gene to their offspring, then red beets will grow! And this also explains why the probability of red beets appearing is the lowest!"

"You understand it perfectly."

Now, both Brisson and Bosc suppressed their doubts and used the Crown Prince's theories to apply to the problems they had encountered before. They found that many of them could be explained.

It is very likely that this knowledge about "genes" and "recessive" is not just the imagination of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!

Archard continued to draw inferences: "So, when I need the yellow trait, I can't just cross two yellow beets because they may carry recessive genes. According to probability, I have to group the offspring into...wait, I need to calculate..."

He picked up a piece of paper and pen and began to write and draw, muttering, "No wonder it was so difficult to fix the trait in the past. It turns out that there are recessive genes mixed in..."

He quickly calculated the result and looked up at Joseph, his eyes full of excitement and excitement: "Your Highness, with your theoretical assistance, perhaps within three years we can really cultivate a beet variety with a sugar content of 12%!"

Joseph nodded with satisfaction. "It's too late. Let's go to dinner first. I'll tell you about the 'Law of Separation' and the 'Law of Free Combination' tomorrow. Maybe it will be more helpful for you to breed new varieties."

……

A week later.

After a full day of studying genetics, Archard left the Tuileries Palace exhausted but excited.

What also excited him was that Dean Leroy came to inform him personally in the morning that according to the re-evaluation of the Talent Committee, he would be formally invited and his talent level was D.

You know, among the introduced talents who have never made any academic contributions, Grade D is basically the highest level.

He was about to get on the carriage assigned to him by the Talent Committee when he saw his fellow countryman August G.K. Bach jogging towards him, waving.

"Why are you here?" He simply bowed and said, "Would you like to take my car back home?"

Bucky hesitated for a while, and finally said with a bitter face: "I think you should change hotels."

"What happened?"

"In fact, Miss Marianne's brother left an invitation for you at the hotel. His sister is getting engaged next week..."

(End of this chapter)