The crossword solutions for the term PEA NUT are MENDEL, a reference to Gregor Mendel, an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who is often called the 'father of modern genetics'. Mendel's experiments with PEA plants in the mid-1800s laid the foundation for the science of genetics. He studied the inheritance of certain traits in PEA plants and discovered the basic principles of heredity now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.