1. Mendel studied the inheritance of one or two characters at a time, unlike his predecessors who had considered many characters at a time. (Kolreuter-Tobacco plant, John Goss & Knight -Pea plant).

2. Selection of Material:

Selection of garden Pea plant is suitable for studies, which have the following advantages :

(i) Pea plant is an annual plant with a short life cycle of 2-3 months due to which large number of offsprings can be analyzed within a short period of time.

(ii) It has many contrasting traits.

(iii) Natural self-pollination is present in pea plants.

(iv) Cross-pollination can be performed in it artificially so hybridization can be made possible.

(v) Pea plant is easy to cultivate.

(vi) Pea seeds are large. In addition to pea, Mendel worked on rajma and hawkweed.

3. Mendel quantitatively analyzes the inheritance of qualitative characters.

4. He maintained the statistical records of all the experiments.

5. His experiments had a large sampling size.