MENDEL’S LAW OF INHERITANCE
- Mendel conducted hybridization experiments on garden peas for seven years (1856-1863). On the basis of these experiments he proposed the laws of inheritance.
- He selected the characters that has two opposing traits and concluded his hybridization experiments on 14 true-breeding pea plant varieties. True-breeding means a breeding line which has undergone continuous self-pollination and shows stable trait inheritance and expression for many generations.
- Reasons for selecting garden pea plant:
- Easily available on large scale.
- There are many varieties with distinct characteristics.
- They are self-pollinated and can be cross-pollinated easily.
- They have a short life cycle.
- Reason for success of Mendel:
- He studied one character at a time.
- He used available techniques to avoid cross pollination by undesirable pollen grains.
- He applied mathematics and statistics to analyze the results obtained from him.
- Mendel selected seven contrasting characters for the experiment.
