Mendel had many years of plant breeding experience. As a result, he selected the garden pea because it grew well in small gardens, produced a large number of seeds, and was easily pollinated. Pea plants are selfpollinating because the anthers (male, pollen producer) and the stigma (female, receives pollen) are enclosed in the same flower. This selfing produces strains of pea plants that are identical for many generations, called true-breeding. From his past experiences, Mendel knew how to crosspollinate plants and how the characteristics of peas
could be used in his studies. For his experiments,Mendel selected only true-breeding strains and studied only a few traits at a time. He grew his chosen plants for two years to make sure he had a true-breeding strain of peas. When he began crossing true-breeding strains, Mendel made sure that the two parents differed only in the few traits he had chosen. Scientists working before Mendel failed in their similar experiments because they did not use true-breeding strains and did not limit the traits they were testing. Mendel was methodical in recording and applying mathematical analysis to his results. His careful numerical analysis had never been done in truebreeding experiments before and was an essential factor in Mendel’s success.