The Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel completed his groundbreaking work on genetic inheritance more than 160 years ago, after carefully studying seven traits in peas, including the shape and colour of their seeds and pods. Yet until now, scientists still hadn't worked out which genes drive three of those traits in the garden pea (Pisum sativum). In a paper published on 23 April in Nature1, researchers add a fresh chapter to Mendel's pivotal story, perhaps in the process launching a new era in the genomic study of peas, which are a popular source of plant-based protein. Scientists published a reference genome for P. sativum in 20192. That digital sequence ' a representation of the plant's DNA ' 'was a huge breakthrough', says Clare Coyne, an adjunct plant geneticist at Washington State University in Pullman. 'But I would say [the latest study] is an even larger breakthrough. It's really just an incredible effort.' Mendel, a citizen scientist, famously performed a series of experiments...
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