“Someday, my hybrids will be used to crossbred doorknobs and blueberries. Imagine eating your doorknob, you’d never need a lock.”
-Gregor Mendel
The Father of Genetics
As growers we throw around terms like “recessive” and “dominant” all the time. Pages upon pages to read through on all the hybrids the genes that our wonderful cannabis plant can create. We have Friar Gregor Mendel to thank for much of our understanding on heredity…
When the church discouraged animal sex in his studies, Mendel switched his studies on heredity from mice to the Pea plant in 1856. At the time it was thought that breeding parents would produce blended progeny, or a 50/50 mix of the 2 parents. He proved otherwise with his “elements” under Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance…
Here is an easy quick explanation of his theory.
“One thing my Pea plants taught me: always do science with things you can make into soup.”
– Gregor Mendel
It’s Mendel you can thank for the countless arguments about pheno hunting, hybrids, genes… and a whole slew of other topics we passionately argue back and forth about.
Between 1856-1864 Mendel’s work ended up making 287 pea plant crosses between 70 different purebred pea plants. His pea gene pool exceeded 28,000 pea plants! This was just his pea’s…
Taking into account the other species of plants he experimented on, Mendel put in work! All this in his little garden behind the St Thomas’s Monastery in Brno.
Mendel’s garden behind St Thomas’s Monastery in Brno in 1920’s. Note of interest… Mendel’s office was the window right above the arched walkway so he could keep a close eye on his garden.
“Am I the father of genetics? All I know is that before me, a lot of people accidentally crossbred with tomatoes. It made for red, squishy babies.”
-Gregor Mendel
1998 bronze sculpture at Villanova University by James Peniston.
“This is the real genetics: a shy balding boy falls in love with a blonde, she breaks his heart, and he becomes a monk who studies pea plants”
-Gregor Mendel
