heterozygous

adj

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Indo-European *sḿ̥teros Proto-Hellenic *hə́teros Ancient Greek ἕτερος (héteros)lbor. English hetero- English -zygous English heterozygous From hetero- + -zygous.

1. Of an organism: having two different alleles in a given gene.

   “Plant breeding is always a numbers game.[…]The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, and individual plants are highly heterozygous and do not breed true. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better.”