Genetics question

Sluggy

Sluggy

Okay. Not sure if this is a completely stupid numbskull question or what, but here goes. 

So...chillies are self-pollenating. Each flower has both male and female reproductive organs. 

Let's say you have a bunch of pods from one single plant. Are the seeds inside those pods genetically identical ? Are they uniform, and will they themselves pass on ALL the same traits to the next generation ? Or is there still a margin of diversity because genetic material is exchanged randomly during pollenation ?

Elaborating on this : 

If I took two clones from the same motherplant, and crossed them ? 

Would their offspring be completely identical ? 
Points to ponder....








 
 
Long answer:
All living beings carry 2 copies of each gene. If both copies of all genes have the same version of the gene, then the off-spring of the self polinated plant should be identical to the parent. However if there are 2 different versions of the same gene you will only see the dominant version. The other, the recessive version will stay hidden until you get an offspring which has only the recessive gene. This may take many generatons.
 
Even if both copies of all genes are the same, there are still the option of mutations which may change one or more genes in the off-spring.
 
Finally a gene may move from one chromosome to another, which could have an effect on how it works, and therefore affect the offspring.
 
So short answer: Yes, but no.  ;)
 
Crossing 2 clones from the mother plant will have same effect as self polinating the mother plant, since the genes are the same.
 
Somebody with biological education, pls. fill in all technical terms...
 
Even shorter version: There will be some variance in chiles from the same flower, but if the generation number is high enough there should be two identical copies of the same gene, and thus no variation.
 
Long version: what HAJ said. Technical terms would goof this up.
 
Okay, MANGE TAK for your answer.

To rephrase my question : can DIVERSITY occur within the offspring of the same plant, because DNA exchange is random ? 

I'm really trying to wrap my brain (or what's left of it) around this  :)

 
 
Sluggy said:
Okay, MANGE TAK for your answer.

To rephrase my question : can DIVERSITY occur within the offspring of the same plant, because DNA exchange is random ? 

I'm really trying to wrap my brain (or what's left of it) around this   :)

 
Click to expand...
 
Since I expect that no plant is fully stable (no dominant/recessive gene combos), and since the gene selected for each pollen/seed is random, yes variation will occur. The more stable the plant is, the less variation.
 
Example: C. Reaper is a new cross, and plenty of variations have been reported but the majority of plants are true. This should be due to a recessive gene sticking out it's head now and then.
 
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