Mendel selected pea plant for his experiment because of the following reasons,
- pea plant have several distinct varieties having a large number of contrasting characters in pairs such as tall T, dwarf t, round R, and wrinkled r, smooth and constricted pea pods etc .
- Pea plant can be cultivated easily and they have short life cycle.
- breeding can be controlled easily in pea plants because of the structure of the flower.
- The flowers of the pea plant are adequate in size and easy to handle.
Johann Gregor Mendel (1822–1884), often called the “father of genetics,” was a teacher, lifelong learner, scientist, and man of faith. It would be fair to say that Mendel had a lot of grit: he persevered through difficult circumstances to make some of the most important discoveries in biology.
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One form of a feature, such as tall, always concealed the other form, such as short, in the first generation after the cross. Mendel called the visible form the dominant trait and the hidden form the recessive trait.
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In the second generation, after plants were allowed to self-fertilize (pollinate themselves), the hidden form of the trait reappeared in a minority of the plants. Specifically, there were always about 3 plants that showed the dominant trait (e.g., tall) for every 1 plant that showed the recessive trait (e.g., short), making a 3, colon, 1 ratio.
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Mendel also found that the features were inherited independently: one feature, such as plant height, did not influence inheritance of other features, such as flower color or seed shape.