Gregor Mandel

Gregor Mandel was born in Austria 1822. He had a passionate love for nature. He enjoyed being around it and loved spending time with Mother Nature. He became a priest at the young age of twenty-one. As a priest he studied math and science at the University of Vienna. He spent his next 14 years working in the monastery and teaching at the high school. While he worked as a priest, he was set in charge of the garden in there monastery. In this ordinary garden he was to do the work that changed biology forever.

When he took charge of the monastery garden he had several different stocks of pea plants. These peas were true-breeding; this means offspring is identical to parent due to fertilization. One stock of seeds would produce only tall plants, another only short plants one stock produced only green seeds, and the other one only produced yellow colored seeds. They were his main experiment and everything was based around these plants.

Well seeds can also cross-pollinate which means sperm (pollen) from one plant combines with egg from a different plant. The seeds produce and make a seed that is a mix between two of the plants. He studied seven different pea plant traits, like seed color of plant height. Each trait that Mandell studied had to contrasting characters. Mendel crossed plants with each of the seven contrasting characters and studied their offspring. He called each original pair of plants the P (Parental) generation. He called the offspring's of the P plants F1 (Children) generation and F2 for the next generation and so on.