Technological Institute of the Philippines

Quiapo, Manila

College of Engineering and Architecture

Chemical Engineering Department

Assignment no. 3
Mendel’s Experiment in Heredity

Submitted to:
Engr. Lina Dela Cruz

Submitted by:

May 24, 2021

Gregor Johann Mendel was a monk and teacher with interests in astronomy and plant breeding.
He was born in 1822, and at 21, he joined a monastery in Brünn (now in the Czech Republic).
The monastery had a botanical garden and library and was a centre for science, religion and
culture. In 1856, Mendel began a series of experiments at the monastery to find out how traits
are passed from generation to generation. At the time, it was thought that parents’ traits were
blended together in their progeny.

Studying traits in peas

Mendel studied inheritance in peas (Pisum sativum). He chose peas because they had been
used for similar studies, are easy to grow and can be sown each year. Pea flowers contain both
male and female parts, called stamen and stigma, and usually self-pollinate. Self-pollination
happens before the flowers open, so progeny are produced from a single plant.

Peas can also be cross-pollinated by hand, simply by opening the flower buds to remove their
pollen-producing stamen (and prevent self-pollination) and dusting pollen from one plant onto
the stigma of another.

Traits in pea plants

Mendel followed the inheritance of 7 traits in pea plants, and each trait had 2 forms. He
identified pure-breeding pea plants that consistently showed 1 form of a trait after generations of
self-pollination.

Mendel then crossed these pure-breeding lines of plants and recorded the traits of the hybrid
progeny. He found that all of the first-generation (F1) hybrids looked like 1 of the parent plants.
For example, all the progeny of a purple and white flower cross were purple (not pink, as
blending would have predicted). However, when he allowed the hybrid plants to self-pollinate,
the hidden traits would reappear in the second-generation (F2) hybrid plants.

Dominant and recessive traits

Mendel described each of the trait variants as dominant or recessiveDominant traits, like purple
flower colour, appeared in the F1 hybrids, whereas recessive traits, like white flower colour, did
not.

Mendel did thousands of cross-breeding experiments. His key finding was that there were 3
times as many dominant as recessive traits in F2 pea plants (3:1 ratio).
Traits are inherited independently

Mendel also experimented to see what would happen if plants with 2 or more pure-bred traits
were cross-bred. He found that each trait was inherited independently of the other and produced
its own 3:1 ratio. This is the principle of independent assortment.