Plant genetics Plant genetics Plant genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity specifically in Plants. It is generally considered a field of biology and botany, but intersects frequently with many other life sciences and is strongly linked with the study of information systems. Plant genetics is similar in many ways to animal genetics but differs in a few key areas. The discoverer of genetics is Gregor Mendel, a late 19th-century scientist and Augustinian friar. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring. He observed that organisms (most famously pea plants) inherit
Gregor Mendel next thirty-five years. His paper was criticized at the time, but is now considered a seminal work. Notably, Charles Darwin was not aware of Mendel's paper, and it is envisaged that if he had been aware of it, genetics as we know it now might have taken hold much earlier. Mendel's scientific biography thus provides an example of the failure of obscure, highly original, innovators to receive the attention they deserve. Mendel began his studies on heredity using mice. He was at St. Thomas's Abbey but his bishop did not like one of his friars studying animal sex, so Mendel