Which of the following statements is INCORRECT Mendel’s pea plant experiments?

Correct option is D

Correct Answer: (D) In the second-generation, or F2 generation which are the progeny of the F1 tall plants, all the plants are tall.

Explanation:

• This statement is incorrect because, in Mendel's pea plant experiments, the F2 generation (the second generation, which is the progeny of the F1 tall plants) did not consist of all tall plants.
• Instead, Mendel observed a 3:1 ratio, where about three-fourths of the plants were tall (dominant trait) and one-fourth were short (recessive trait).
• This was a key finding that led him to deduce the inheritance of traits through dominant and recessive alleles.

Other Options:

• He took a tall plant and a short plant, produced progeny by crossing them and in the resulting F1 progeny, all plants were tall: This is correct. Mendel crossed a tall plant with a short plant, and all the plants in the F1 generation were tall due to the dominant nature of the tall trait.

•  Mendel used a number of contrasting visible characters of garden peas - round/wrinkled seeds, tall/short plants: This is correct. Mendel studied several contrasting traits such as seed shape (round/wrinkled), plant height (tall/short), and flower color, among others.

•  Appearance of both the tallness and shortness traits in F2 progeny indicated that both the traits were inherited in the F1 plants: This is correct. The appearance of both the dominant (tall) and recessive (short) traits in the F2 generation supported Mendel's hypothesis of inheritance through two alleles (one from each parent).