Mendel’s plant breeding of Pea Plants
Gregor Mendel, a German scientists [Pictured Right], has suddenly rose to fame after founding modern science of genetics. Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. With seed color, he was able to demonstrate that that when a yellow pea and a green pea were bred together, in concluded in their offspring plant always being yellow. However, in the next generation of plants, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1:3. To explain his strange discovery, Mendel coined the terms “recessive” and “dominant” in reference to certain traits (Yellow peas are clearly dominant according to his recent studies, and green peas are recessive) He published his work in 1866, demonstrating the actions of invisible “factors”—now called genes—in providing for visible traits in predictable ways.
Who is he?
Mendel was born into an ethnic German family in Heinzendorf bei Odrau, Moravian-Silesian border, Austrian Empire (now known as Hynčice, Czech Republic). He was the son of Rosine and Anton Mendel, and had one younger sister called Theresia and one older called Veronika. They worked and lived on a farm which had been owned by the Mendel family for about 130 years. During his childhood, Mendel worked as a gardener and studied beekeeping. Later, as a young man, he attended gymnasium in Opava. He had to take four months off during his gymnasium studies due to medical issues. From 1840 to 1843, he studied practical and theoretical philosophy and physics at the University of Olomouc Faculty of Philosophy, taking another year off because of illness. He also struggled financially to pay for his studies, and Theresia gave him her dowry.