Gregor Mendel (father of modern genetics) was an Austrian monk who discovered the

basic principles of heredity through experiments in his garden. Mendel's observations became
the foundation of modern genetics and the study of heredity, and he is widely considered a
pioneer in the field of genetics.

Mendel’s model system: The pea plant

 Pea plants are also easy to cross, or mate in a controlled way. This is done by transferring
pollen from the anthers (male parts) of a pea plant of one variety to the carpel (female part)
of a mature pea plant of a different variety.
 Each pea in the pod (the vessel that contains the seeds of a plant) is an offspring, which
means a lot of offspring’s in each plant.
 Useful features of peas include their rapid life cycle and the production of lots and lots of
seeds. Pea plants also typically self-fertilize

 Mendel used seven pea plant traits in his experiments which include
1. )flower color (purple or white)
2. flower position (axil or terminal)
3. stem length (long or short),
4. seed shape (round or wrinkled)
5. seed color (yellow or green),
6. pod shape (inflated or constricted),
7. and pod color (yellow or green)

Law of Segregation, Mendel’s “First Law”

Mendel concluded on this law after finding when breeding white and purple colored
flowered plants it was not a mix of the two colors, but really one color was chosen
over the other. There are four different parts of the law he included

1) There are other forms of genes that can determine the heritable traits,
alleles.

2) Each offspring receives one allele from each parent.

3) Either a sperm or egg holds only one allele for each trait and those pair
during fertilization.

4) If the alleles are different one is seen and the other is not as one trait is
dominant and the other is recessive.

Law of Independent Assortment, Mendel’s “Second Law”

states that allele pairs separate during the formation of gametes. This means that traits are
transmitted to offspring independently of one another.
An allele is an alternative form of a gene (one member of a pair) that is located at a specific
position on a specific chromosome