@disc4tw
It is curiosity like yours that drives horticultural research.
There are four main types of biological assay.
Morphology. Structural characteristics such as monocot vs. dicots, leaf shapes, and mature height.
Physiology. Internal processes down to the cell level such as enzyme interactions with soil and chlorophyll chemistry.
Genetic Markers. This assay is performed either manually or by robotic devices (size and shape of a washing machine) using a chemical process known as PCR. The necessary chemicals and optics are contained in the robot. In horticulture, the chemical byproducts of PCR (called amplicons) are examined for their length. In more robust sciences, the amplicons are sequenced to examine their contents.
Genetic Sequencing. Robotic hardware (size and shape of a refrigerator) is used to determine the “base pairs” of a specimen. At present, there are two main types, short-read (e.g. Illumina) and long read (e.g. PacBio). They each serve different purposes. Unfortunately, the difference are sometimes ignored by investigators seeking lower cost assay. Both are limited to diploid assay.