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About the Authors:
Roger P. Hellens
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand
Carol Moreau
Affiliation: Department of Crop Genetics, John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom
Kui Lin-Wang
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand
Kathy E. Schwinn
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Susan J. Thomson
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Christchurch, New Zealand
Mark W. E. J. Fiers
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Christchurch, New Zealand
Tonya J. Frew
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Christchurch, New Zealand
Sarah R. Murray
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Christchurch, New Zealand
Julie M. I. Hofer
Affiliation: Department of Crop Genetics, John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom
Jeanne M. E. Jacobs
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Christchurch, New Zealand
Kevin M. Davies
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Andrew C. Allan
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand
Abdelhafid Bendahmane
Affiliation: URGV, Evry, France
Clarice J. Coyne
Affiliation: United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service Western Regional Plant Introduction Station, Pullman, Washington, United States of America
Gail M. Timmerman-Vaughan
Affiliation: The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd, Christchurch, New Zealand
T. H. Noel Ellis
* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliation: Department of Crop Genetics, John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom
Introduction
The segregation of flower color in the progeny of pea crosses is well known in genetics because of Mendel's experiments [1], but it is less widely known that about 70 years previously Knight had studied the inheritance of flower color in pea [2]. Probably Mendel was aware of Knight's work and it may have helped him to choose his material for study. According to Fisher [3] it was in the spring of 1860 that Mendel counted the segregation ratios for this pigmentation character, immortalized in his famous ratio A + 2Aa + a [1]; A later became the symbol for the gene that determines the accumulation...