1. Mendel conducted breeding experiments with pea plants over seven years to test his particulate hypothesis of inheritance. He found that traits are passed from parents to offspring as distinct factors, now called genes.
2. Mendel discovered that traits can be dominant or recessive, and that alleles segregate independently during gamete formation according to his laws of inheritance.
3. Mendel's work established the foundations of classical genetics and showed that heredity follows predictable statistical patterns. His principles help explain the inheritance of human traits and disorders like cystic fibrosis.