Question

Mendelism is genetics of?

Answer 1

Hint: Mendel selected a pea plant for his experiment. Later on I did experiments on maize, primrose etc. Pea had around 7 contrasting characteristics which made it even more eligible for the experiment.

Complete answer –
Gregor John Mendel gave a set of theories and his whole theory was known as Mendelism.
He did his experiment on Pisum sativum, generally known as pea, which was a diploid plant. He started his experiment from the year 1856 and continued it till 1863 for a period of 7 years. He chose pea plant for the following reason –
It was small and easy to grow
It reproduces large no. of offspring’s
It had a no. of contrasting traits.
It is naturally self – pollinating but can be cross- pollinated.
Have a short life.
Mendel’s methodology involved-
Obtaining seeds which were true to their type i.e. plants with red flowers always produced generations of red flower plants.
Counting all seeds and grouping them on the basis of characters that they represent. Also he kept the track of characters of plants of several generations.
He drew generalization on the basis of numerical relationships between the hybrid having contrasting characters.
Mendel’s methodology was a success as he studied the inheritance of a single pair of characters first (monohybrid cross) and later took combinations (dihybrid cross). His contribution was unique because of his definite and statistical approach towards the problems.
Mendel was able to demonstrate that traits were passed from each parent to their offspring through the inheritance of genes.
Being such a complex process as it is, it was also done in diploid organisms.

So we can say that Mendelism is the genetics of diploids.

Note:
Mendel’s work remained unrecognized for several years as –
His approach was mathematical and so unacceptable, because it was new for everyone
Communication gap.
At that time everybody was focused on Darwin’s work as he was much more renowned at that time.
Moreover, his idea that factors/genes did not blend was unacceptable for other biologists.