Why did Mendel select garden pea plant for his experiment ?
1. Short Life Cycle
Garden pea is an annual plant and completes the life cycle within three to four months. Due to the short life span he could grow three generations in a year.
2. Small Size
It is a small herbaceous plant that produces many seeds and so he could grow thousands of pea plants in a small plot (70 m ×7 m) behind the church.
3. Self-Pollinating with deifferent variety.
It is naturally self pollinating and was available in the form of many varieties with contrasting characters such as tall and dwarf plants, yellow and green seeds, violet and white flowers, etc.
There were no intermediate characters.
4. Easy Emasculation
Though flowers are naturally self pollinating they are large enough for easy emasculation required for artificial cross and produce fertile offsprings.
Enlist the seven pair of constrasting characters in pea plant.
|
# |
Character |
Dominant |
Recessive |
Chromosome Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Height of stem |
Tall (TT) |
Dwarf (tt) |
4 |
|
2 |
Seed Color (Cotyledon) |
Yellow (Y) |
Green (y) |
1 |
|
3 |
Seed Shape |
Round (R) |
Wrinkled (r) |
7 |
|
4 |
Pod color |
Green (G) |
Yellow (g) |
5 |
|
5 |
Pod shape |
Inflated (I) |
Constricted (i) |
4 |
|
6 |
Flower Position |
Axial (A) |
Terminal (a) |
4 |
|
7 |
Flower Color** |
Colored (C) |
White (c) |
1 |
|
8 |
Seed Coat Color** |
Colored (C) |
White (c) |
1 |
**Color of flower and seed coat were studied concomitantly i.e. accompanying each other.
State the reasons for Mendel's success.
i) Mendel chose garden pea plant for his experiments which was an annual, naturally self pollinating plant with several pairs of contrasting characters.
ii) Mendel concentrated only on one character at a time.
iii) He kept accurate records.
iv) He used statistical methods for analyzing the results.
v) The characters selected by Mendel were present on different chromosomes.
