What was the dominant pod color in Mendel's peas?

The dominant pod color in Mendel’s pea plants was green.

Mendel studied the color of unripe pea pods, comparing green pods with yellow pods. When he crossed true-breeding plants differing in this characteristic, the first-generation offspring consistently produced green pods. Green was therefore identified as the dominant phenotype, while yellow was recessive.

The result supported Mendel’s broader argument that inherited traits do not simply blend together. A hybrid plant could carry the factor associated with yellow pods even while its visible pods were green. When those hybrids reproduced, the recessive yellow form could reappear among their descendants.

This question is sometimes confused with seed or cotyledon color. In Mendel’s experiments, yellow was dominant for the color of the mature seed’s cotyledons, whereas green was dominant for pod color. They were separate characteristics, even though both involved green and yellow alternatives. Mendel included pod color among the seven paired traits used to develop his model of inheritance.