Describe Mendel's experiments in brief.

Gregor Mendel conducted experiments on pea plants to study the inheritance of traits, laying the foundation of genetics.

He selected pea plants because they have clear contrasting traits such as tall and dwarf height, round and wrinkled seeds, and yellow and green seeds. Mendel performed controlled cross-pollination between plants with different traits.

In a monohybrid cross, he crossed pure tall plants with pure dwarf plants. The first generation (F1) showed only tall plants. When these were self-pollinated, the second generation (F2) showed both tall and dwarf plants in a ratio of 3:1.

Mendel also conducted dihybrid crosses, studying two traits at once, and observed inheritance patterns.

From his experiments, he concluded that traits are controlled by factors (now called genes) that are inherited in pairs, and one trait may dominate over the other.

Thus, Mendel’s experiments established the basic principles of inheritance.