The importance of Gregor Mendel's work was not recognized until well after his death, but a whole field of genetics is now named after him, and his early studies lay the basis for the study of genetic inheritance. Between 1856 and 1863, Mendel grew and tested over 28,000 pea plants (biopoint.com, 2004). His carrying out his experiment using peas was fortuitous because they have a relatively simple genetic structure, and their breeding could be controlled so that he could be sure of the parents of his plants. He only measured absolute characteristics such as size, shape, and color, and he used large sample sizes. Mendel's numerical recording of his results and statistical analyses gave credibility to the results he obtained. By examining several successive generations of plants, he was able to develop his first and second laws of inheritance.
Mendel's law of segregation has four parts: alternative versions of genes give rise to variations in inherited characteristics; for each character, an organism inherits one gene from each parent; if two alleles differ, the dominant one will be fully expressed in the organism's appearance; and the two genes for each character separate during gamete production (biopoint.com, 2004). Mendel's law of independent assortment is that genes for different traits separate independently during phenotype is their appearance, structure, function, or behavior. A person's phenotype is brought about by an interaction between their genetic makeup and their environment. gamete production, and the emergence of one trait will not affect the emergence of another trait. However, some genes are linked together on the same chromosome and do not sort independently.
Mendel explored dominant and recessive alleles using monohybrid and dihybrid crosses (Wilson, 2000, 140-141). For instance, if a dominant allele A gives green peas, and a recessive allele a gives yellow peas, a plant homozygous for the domina...