Question

Why did Mendel prevent his plants from self-pollinating? so they couldn't produce offspring to insure that each plant's offspring would remain identical to the parents to control the crossing of the traits to maintain a pure strain

Answer 1

To control the crossing of traits. He wanted to make sure that certain variables in his experiments remained unchanged. If they had changed, the experiment would have to be scraped and redone.

Answer 2

Answer:

The correct answer is "to control the crossing of the traits to maintain a pure strain".

Explanation:

Gregor Mendel is considered the father of genetics for his studies of  inheritance in pea plants. Mendel studied how the pea plant's traits are transferred trough generations by cross-pollination. However, in nature pea plants are usually reproduced by self-pollination at which the progeny is produced by a single plant. Mendel prevented his plants from self-pollinating to control the crossing of the traits to maintain a pure strain. By doing so, Mendel assured that the only reproducing method that he was studying was cross-pollination.