Question

what are the reasons that allowed Mendel to discover the principle of Heredity?

Answer 1

Answer-

Mendel studied the inheritance of 7 different pairs of contrasting characters in Pisum sativum plant.

Reasons behind Mendel's success-

1) Selection of material- Mendel selected garden pea as his experimental material after long and careful thought, because it had following advantages: a) it has short life cycle;

b) It has perfect bisexual flowers containing both male and female parts, the flowers are self pollinating;

c) It is easy to cross as pollens from one plant can be introduced to stigma of another plant by removing anthers.

2) Methods of working- a) Mendel first studied the reasons of failure of his predecessors and then carried out his experiments;

b) He studied the inheritance of one character at a time;

c) Crossing were done between the parents of pure lines having sharply visible contrasting characters;

d) He grew different pure lines in separate garden plots, preventing chance of their mingling.

  3) Selection of traits- He selected 7 pairs of contrasting characters. He studied the inheritance of each pair of contrasting characters separately.

Sl. No.	Characters	Dominant	Recessive
1	Stem length	Tall	Short
2	Flower position	Axial	Terminal
3	Flower colour	Purple	White
4	Pod shape	Inflated	Constricted
5	Pod colour	Green	Yellow
6	Seed Shape	round	wrinkled
7	Seed colour	Yellow	Green