Gregor Mendel Essay

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What is genetics? This is a common, simple question in today’s world. Genetics is simply put as the study of genes, what they do, and how they work. The science of and our current understanding of genetics has come a long way since Gregor Mendel’s pea experiments. Who is Gregor Mendel? Gregor Mendel is often regarded as the forefather to the genetics that we know today. If it was not for Gregor Mendel’s early pioneering in a subject that was practically rejected during that time period, who knows where genetics would be today and who knows what we would know.1,2 Gregor Mendel was born in Austria in 1822. Before Gregor Mendel became a scientific pioneer, Mendel was a monk which is quite contradictory due to the time period and the fact …show more content…

Plant hybridization is when you cross two plants that are genetically different in order to get a new genotype. Genetic variation is simply put as the diversity in genes. I believe that Gregor Mendel used pea plants because first of all, pea plants are very cheap plants. I also believe that Gregor Mendel used pea plants because there are so many different kinds of pea plants with different distinguishable traits. For example, pea plants come in all kinds of different colors such as purple, blue, red, white, etc. Pea plants also have many different seed colors, seed shapes, pod shape, pod color, flower position, and stem length. These are all traits that Gregor Mendel tested for in his pea experiments. It is noted that Gregor Mendel also tested pea plants due to their ability to either pollinate themselves and/or pollinate other plants known as self-pollination and cross-pollination. Since Mendel was dealing with pea plants, Mendel could cross any specific trait/plant with any other trait/plant of his choosing. The use of pea plants facilitated an easy experiment while also facilitating a great scientific discovery. Gregor Mendel …show more content…

Mendel did this with seven different character traits which were flower color, seed color, seed shape, pod shape, pod color, flower position, and stem length. For example, for flower color, in Mendel’s control group, Mendel had two sets of plants, one was purple and one was white. Everything was the same between these plants other than their flower color. Mendel first began his experiment by crossing a purple-flowered plant with a white flowered plant using pollen from the white flowered plant on the purple-flowered plant. This was the P or parental generation. This cross resulted in purple-flowered plants. This new generation is called the F1 generation. Afterwards, he did the opposite and pollinated white flowered plants with pollen from the purple flowered plants. Yet again this still resulted in purple flowered plants. The outcomes of this experiment first disproved the idea that if you cross two colors, then a color that is a mixture of the two will be shown in the offspring. It also gave early rise to the idea of gene dominance. Mendel then was unsure as to why there was no longer a sign of any white in any of the

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