puzzle

I stepped into something that I was not prepared for. I am actively trying to figure out mature pepper fruit colors. what developed so far is an interesting 3-D puzzle.

I am at the point to share this with others. I have made several drafts. Each time I look at I see that it is franticly packed with information. I have tried my best to present things clearly. I wanted to take time in the beginning of this part of the letter to thank you for taking a look at my work and what I have found.

You may not be interested in genetics or mature pepper colors. I see this puzzle as a key. I am sure that it will turn other locks as well. If you see how this fits into something else please let me know! I plant to keep this page updated a bit faster than my other stagnant pages.

Mature peppers colors are controlled by the presence or absence of the following four genes y, cl, c1, and c2. By chance, I have no invested interest in the cl gene (This gene keeps the mature fruits from loosing their green color as they mature.). That left three genes: y, c1, and c2 to control the expression of 8 different colors.

I could not plot or graph this problem properly in 2-D. When I made pie charts the outer edges looked like they belonged in the center... This confused me.

As I tried to use a pie chart to express the 8 traits, something stood out... These 3 genes and 8 colors could be modeled neatly on a octahedron. My goal was to understand mature pepper fruit color. What came out was more than I expected. I can not express in words how perfect many issues fell in to place. It is like a needle into a record.

I made a simple 2-D model and assigned each corner a trait trait. If you make your own paper model you will have to mark both sides of the paper. Imagine each triangle as a clear tile. Then, you will have a mirror image that you can turn or flip at will.

I numbered the colors to simplify things. It “naturally” took on a pattern and balance. It was thrilling to see this...It turns out, the sum of each parallel side of the octahedron equals 9 : (1 + 8) , (2 + 7) , (3 + 6) , (4 + 5) ..... When I try to reduce it to strictly a math problem,different patterns develop. This is something that I am not going to dismiss but, I will need to look at it in more detail. I can only fall down one rabbit hole at a time.

Color names are subjective. I renamed the colors so that they had a better feel and fit. The c2 gene is present in the “Light” colors. The colors remain the same but I feel this way is better to visualize.

I am calling the colors the following names:

1: Light Lemon 5: Light Orange

2: Lemon 6: Orange

3: Light Yellow 7: Light Red

4: Yellow 8: Red

Thank you for taking a look at my work. Feel free to contact me. I hope that you can read my e-mail address in the jpeg image.

Seehow I identify and label my crossed flowers:

HomePage: