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Why did Mendel let the pea plants self- fertilize before performing his experiments??? What good does this do, since in the end all you end up is "exact copies" (asexual reproduction) of the intitial plants???

2007-10-30 12:00:02 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Botany

3 answers

But you don't. Think of it this way - if the parent plant was homozygous for any trait (RR or rr) you would get exact clones, but if the parent was heterozygous (the alleles are different, as in Rr) when the alleles would combine in fertilization (even if self fertilization) you'd get a mix of RR, Rr, and rr. That's because during meiosis when the pollen and ovules are produced, they can only get one of the alleles (either an "R" or "r") which would randomly combine with another "R" or "r".

By doing this, you could tell what the genetics of the parent plant would be by seeing if you got offspring that were all the same or different from each other. He only wanted plants that would reproduce "true" to the parent as part of the experiment so he could study HOW the traits were passed.

2007-10-30 12:27:39 · answer #1 · answered by copperhead 7 · 2 0

Family of pea, Leguminosae, is absolute self fertilisation occuring familly. In other words, Mendel did not selfed the pea, it is naturally selfed due to the flower structure.

2007-10-30 19:58:57 · answer #2 · answered by Tarik 4 · 0 0

huh??

2007-10-30 19:21:22 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 2

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