Question

Question 1
How do Mendel’s experiments show that traits may be dominant or recessive?

Answer 1

When Mendel crossed one tall and one dwarf pea plant, all the offsprings in the first filial (F1) generation was tall. When he self-crossed the F1 generation, among them ${\frac{3}{4}}^{th}$ of the progenies were tall whereas ${\frac{1}{4}}^{th}$ were short. Thus he concluded that although the F1 progeny had both tall and short traits, only tall plants were observed in the F1 generation, this means that tallness is a dominant trait.