1. Sorghum Mother Plant Sorghum Father Plant
(Has most of the favorable genes) (Has one gene that needs to be transferred
to hybrid sorghum seed)
First Generation Hybrid (F1 Seed)
Scientists cross-pollinate mother and father plants
and harvest seeds. Then scientists plant the seed
and then sort through the offspring plants with the
best traits to find the plant with seeds that have the
most favorable traits, the F1 seed.
Back-Crossing (Creating an F2 Seed)
Scientists mate the F1 seed with the mother plant
to eliminate excess genes transferred to the F1 seed
by the father plant. Then they sort through
offspring seeds from the back-crossing looking for
the seed with the most favorable traits, the F2 seed.
The scientists repeat the back-cross and sorting
seed processes until they find a seed with the
favorable genes from the mother plant and the one
favored gene from the father plant. Each back-
crossing takes one growing cycle to complete,
which is usually about a year!