LAWS OF MENDEL Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884)

He is appropriately called as father of genetics. He was born in 1822 at Moravia near Brunn in Austria, now Bruno, Czeach Republic. laws of mendel

His father was a poor farmer.

During his childhood he had to suffer on account of financial and health problems.

Unable to contimue his studies, he joined St. Augustinian monastery at Brunn in 1846.

In 1847, he was appointed as a priest of the church. In 1851, he was sent by monastery authorities to the university of Vienna.

In 1854, he returned to Brunn where he was appointed as a substitute science teacher.

His performance as a science teacher was excellent.

He worked as a priest in the local church. He lived in a house located within the premises of the church.

In 1857, he began to collect pea seeds for his experiments from commercial seed growers all over the Europe.

He conducted all his experiments within the premises of the church.

After seven years of painstaking, sincere and exhaustive experimentation he presented his findings before the “Natural History society of Brunn”.

His paper entitled “Experiments in plant Hybridization” was presented in German asenaue His paper was published in the annual proceedings of the society in 1866.

Gregor Mendel died in 1884 at an age of 62 years, long before the world could understood and appreciate his contribution to understand the laws of heredity.

The paper was presented in a very lucid style, was based on clear cut evidence of The extensive data.

But the work was much ahead of its time.

Although the basic principles of genetics were formulated in 1865 it self, the new baby was kept in an incubator and forgotten for the next 35 years.

Sixteen years after his demise, three scientists working independently arrived at the same conclusions as those of Mendel.

Mendel laws were rediscovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and Erich Von Tschermark simultaneiously.

And the science of Genetics was truly born (1900)

laws of mendel

Why Mendel selected pea as an experimental material ? 

1) Several pea varieties were commercially available.

2) It had contrasting forms of characters.

3) The flowers were self pollinating in nature.

4) The flowers were reatively large.

5) Therefore emasculation and pollination was very easy.

6) The duration of pea crop was of single season.

7) It was easy to cultivate pea plants in pots.

8) The seeds were quite large and germination percentage was quite good.

Reasons of Mendels success! 

laws of mendel

1) He carried out accurate and incisive analysis

2) He studied only one pair of contasting character at a time.

3) He selected those pea varieties which had different forms of characters.

4) He classified all the plants of a population on the basis of his study and kept accurate record for every generation.

5) His knowledge of mathematics was a definite asset for the interpretation.