Pea - Peas in Science

Peas in Science

In the mid-19th century, Austrian monk Gregor Mendel's observations of pea pods led to the principles of Mendelian genetics, the foundation of modern genetics. He ended up growing and examining about 28,000 pea plants in the course of his experiments. Mendel chose peas for his experiments because he could grow them easily, develop pure-bred strains, protect them from cross-pollination, and control their pollination. Mendel cross-bred tall & dwarf pea plants, green & yellow peas, purple & white flowers, wrinkled & smooth peas, and a few other traits. He then observed the resulting offspring. In each of these cases, one trait is dominant and all the offspring, or Filial-1 generation, showed the dominant trait. Then he crossed members of the F₁ generation together and observed their offspring, the Filial-2 generation. The F₂ plants had the dominant trait in approximately a 3:1 ratio. Mendel reasoned that each parent had a 'vote' in the appearance of the offspring and the non-dominant or recessive trait appeared only when it was inherited from both parents. He did further experiments that showed each trait is separately inherited. Unwittingly, Mendel had solved a major problem with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution: how could new traits be preserved and not blended back into the population? But Darwin never learned about it. Mendel's work was published in an obscure Austrian journal and was not rediscovered until about 1900.