On Thu, 5 Jan 2006, Russell McMahon wrote:

>> Most GM and other 'supplied' seed plants are incapable of reproduction
>> in the 2nd generation (the one that ends up on the fields). This is also
>> true for most non-GM plant seeds supplied to farmers. The producers
>> would not want the farmers to set up their own seed factory after buying
>> once ...
>
> This is the so called "Terminator gene" effect.
> In fact it is NOT a feature of products on the market - or at least, the 
> sellers say that they think that none of their products have any of these 
> genes. Either or both of these claims may be untrue :-).

Afaik the 'terminal' nature of crop seeds is achieved using just 
hybridization with a generation that is selected for low reproduction 
yield. It is not as sinister as you imply and it does not use GM, just 
plain old Mendel's laws. Here is some good reading on this:

http://ecoport.org/ep?SearchType=earticleView&earticleId=162&page=2060

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_methods_in_plant_breeding_based_on_mode_of_reproduction

(look under 'back crossing' and 'hybridization' in the Wikipedia 
article). I know very little about these things however. This article 
deals with reproduction in general in various species (and with 
parthogenesis):

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/AsexualReproduction.html

Peter
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