Question
Why did Mendel choose garden pea for his experiments? How did he make sure that the parent plants were true–breeding?
Solution
Mendel selected garden pea for his experiment because of the following reasons:
(i) Garden pea have a sort lifecycle and thus can produce more number of offsprings in a short duration.
(ii) It had well defined and contrasting characters.
(iii) Peas could reproduce by cross-pollination as well as self-pollination.
Making of True-breeding:
(i) He self-pollinated the pea plants for several successive generation of each variety to eliminate any offspring that was not true to the form of the trait.
(ii) He ensured that the seeds of a variety produced only that type of plants and so on. For example, the seeds of white flowered plants produced only white-flowered plants in successive generations.
