Revisiting Mendel’s Traits for Boosting Sustainable Agriculture

Syllabus- Science and Technology [GS Paper-3]

28/05/2025

246 2 minutes read

Image Credit: iStockphoto

A global team mapped pea genomic diversity, advancing breeding research, revisiting Mendel’s developments, and boosting sustainable agriculture.

The studies, which appear inside the magazine Nature, are constructed in collaboration with the John Innes Centre (JIC) and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), collectively with other research agencies in China, the United Kingdom, USA, and France.
The studies have connected more than 70 agronomic traits to corresponding genomic places.
The many one of a kind genetic markers at each of these places can be used to accelerate pea development.
Their work has uncovered new insights into the tendencies that Mendel famously studied and found out valuable genetic range.

The improved gene bank and genomic assets now to be had to researchers and breeders globally have the capacity to convert pea breeding and increase research into this environmentally critical legume.
The study comes at a time whilst peas and other legumes are being referred to as a source of plant protein, and as sustainable crops that can repair their very own nitrogen.
It will pave the way for more predictive breeding – including the use of AI models which can pick combos of genes to deliver better yielding, disease resistant, agronomically possible pea flora.

Mendel is called the father of genetics because of his ground-breaking work on inheritance in pea plants 150 years ago.
He centered on seven trends: pea seed form (round or wrinkled), pea seed shade (green or yellow), pod form (constricted or inflated), pod coloration (green or yellow), flower color (pink or white), plant length (tall or dwarf) and position of plant (axial or terminal).
Mendel selected pea plants because they’ve effortlessly observable tendencies (e.g., flower shade, seed form), grow fast, and may be self- or cross-pollinated.
Over many years of experiments, related to hundreds of plants, he established fundamental policies of inheritance, how characteristics are surpassed down through the generations, and single-handedly laid the basis for the science of genetics.

Law of Segregation: Each individual has two alleles for a trait, but only one allele is passed on to the offspring during gamete formation.
- Traits are determined by way of pairs of alleles.
- During meiosis, the 2 alleles segregate (separate), so each gamete gets only one allele.
Law of Independent Assortment: Genes for distinct traits assort independently of each other during gamete formation.
- The inheritance of one trait (e.g., plant top) does not affect the inheritance of some other trait (e.g., seed colour), assuming the genes are on specific chromosomes.
- This explains the variety in developments amongst offspring.
Law of Dominance: When two exceptional alleles are found in a couple, one (the dominant allele) masks the expression of the other (the recessive allele).
- In a heterozygous condition (e.g., Tt), the dominant trait (tallness) is expressed, and the recessive trait (shortness) is hidden.