Mendel’s Law of Inheritance

Mendel’s Work
Gregor Mendel was the first worker who performed real meaningful research on hereditary. Earlier workers who had worked on genetic experiments on plants had failed because they did not use proper method and wrong choice of material.
Choice of Experiment Material
Mendel conducted genetic experiments on garden pea plant, Pisum Sativum. Choice of this material contributed greatly to the success of his experiments. It is a very suitable material for genetic experiments because of following reasons.
Pisum Sativum has several varieties showing distinct pairs of contrasting characters some which are
(a). Length of stem …. Tall or dwarf
(b). Shape of seet coat …. Round or wrinkled
(c). Colour of cotyledons …. Yellow or greeen.

• This plant is naturally self pollinating; thus accidental cross pollination is ruled out. Cross pollination can take place only artificially.
• Artificial cross breeding is easy because flowers are large.
• Resulting hybrids are fertile.
• Life cycle is short, therefore results are known in a short period.
• Mendel studied one trait at a time and ignored complexities that created troubles for earlier workers.

Based on his experiments and observations, Mendel described patterns of inheritance and formulated some laws of hereditary. These laws are
Law of Segregation and Law of independent assortment.