Mendel was successful because
i) He was a monk.
ii) He used pea plant
iii) He made crosses
iv) He did not confront linkage
Answers
Explanation:
The main reason for the success of Mendel was that he took one character at one time in his experiments of hybridization. So it was easy. Other scientists also performed cross-hybridization for many characters, this made the experiments complex and they could not accurately explain the results.
In this web lab, students experiment with garden pea plants (Pisum sativum) as did Austrian monk Gregor Mendel (1822-1884). Mendel chose to experiment with peas because they possessed four important qualities:
Peas had been shown to be true-breeding (all offspring will have the same characteristic generation after generation).
Peas exhibit a variety of contrasting traits (purple vs. white flowers; round vs. wrinkled seeds).
The shape of the pea flower protected it from foreign pollen. Peas usually reproduce by self-pollination, in which pollen produced by a flower fertilizes eggs in the same flower.
Pea plants grow quickly and do not require much space.
The traits that Mendel studied are listed below:
Form of ripe seed (R) – smooth or wrinkled
Color of seed albumen (Y) – yellow or green
Color of flower (P) – purple or white
Form of ripe pods (I) – inflated or constricted
Color of unripe pods (G) – green or yellow
Position of flowers (A) – axial or terminal
Length of stem (T) – tall or dwarf
Back To Mendel's Experiment Directory
The Web Lab