Plants Are Capable of Having Three “Parents”
produce huge amounts of sperm cells. While this strategy increases the likelihood of fertilization, it also carries the risk of an egg merging with more than one sperm cell. This process, known as polyspermia [...] usually fatal in animals and humans. In the process of reproduction, also plants form ova and sperm cells. In a project supported by the European Research Council (ERC), a working group from the University [...] dusted a third plant (mother) with pollen from both fathers. In normal fertilization, only the sperm cell of one father fuses with the egg. In such a case, the herbicide-resistant gene is either not inherited