Video Transcript
Mendel carried out experiments to
discover how the color of seeds was determined in pea plants. When he had a plant that was ready
to use in his experiment, he removed the stamens from its flowers. Why? (A) To allow him to sequence the
DNA of the plant. (B) To ensure the plant could not
cross-pollinate. (C) To prevent the plant from
producing seeds. (D) To ensure this plant did not
self-pollinate. (E) To provide more space for seed
growth.
This question asks about Gregor
Mendel’s experiments in pea plants to determine the laws of inheritance that we
still use today. Mendel is considered the father of
genetics. And his first experiments were
conducted in the 1800s, long before the molecular contributions to genetics were
understood.
Mendel used pea plants to explore
heredity since they can grow quickly and have contrasting traits, such as wrinkled
or smooth peas. He also used them because they can
undergo self-pollination.
Pollination is the process of
joining sperm produced in the stamen to eggs produced in the plant’s carpel. During self-pollination, a plant
with both stamen and carpel structures could pollinate itself to produce
offspring. This is an interesting phenomenon
to study. But Mendel needed to pollinate his
pea plants in very controlled ways in order to learn more about heredity. So he couldn’t allow
self-pollination to occur.
So what he did was remove the
stamens from the pea plants. This prevented self-pollination
from occurring. And when he wanted to pollinate his
plants, he could simply transfer pollen from the stamen of the plants he wanted to
cross. This allowed him to reproduce pea
plants in a controlled manner.
After reviewing the experiments of
Mendel and his approach to artificial pollination, we’re able to answer our
question. The reason Mendel removed the
stamens from his pea plants during his experiments is given by answer choice (D): to
ensure this plant did not self-pollinate.
