mendel

Mendel, one of the founding fathers of genetics, was well known for his empirical approach to genetics.  Through his studies of pea plants, he was able to discover that specific morphological characteristics had variable traits from plant to plant.  These traits were able to be passed down from the parents into the next generation of pea plants.  Among these traits, some of them are dominant while other are recessive.  Through self fertilizing the pea plants, Mendel was able to identify true breeding plants.  These plants are known as homozygous now.  When two true breading plants were crossed, they produced plants which contained both variables of the trait.