Dear All, When I read the advised article about seeds production problems, it raised in my mind questions I had never thought about. After reading contradiction in the thread, I still have some doubts that some of the points exposed in this article weren't good points. Wouldn't it be possible that plants which were selected for producing rapidly something of economic interest (and they need not be GMO or hybrid engineered for that) - which usually concerns only one part of the life cycle of the plant - may have been misselected for characteristics related to other parts of their life cycle ? I guess that farmers select their plants for their global interest, i.e. so that they produce good crop plus multiply correctly, without knowing the mecanisms of selection involved, from a simple and pragmatic perspective. I guess that the ideal situation, when they get a remarkable strain, is that this strain also reproduces well, but is it always the case ? Sometimes, will the advantage discovered by chance not come with a terrible weakness somewhere else ? And if the advantage is so remarkable, wouldn't the farmer chose to keep the strain despite other negative characteristics ? If the new strain has a weakness in its ability to keep good development beyond the stage it is usually harvested, for instance, more work in the selection process surely needs to be done, but is it always possible ? If the selection pressure was only placed on one aspect of the plant's development, maybe at the cost of weaknesses beyond this specific part of interest in the life cycle of the plant, maybe causing a plant to be prone to diseases as suggested by the author, wouldn't it be logical to sustain seeds production with any means, including chemicals ? Wouldn't this practice, in turn, result in the selection of strains requiring specific chemicals at one point of their development because they got filtered that way through the years (= those receiving the chemicals produce more seeds until the point that only these are found in the population) ?? This is all speculation : it looks sound to me from a logical perspective, but I may not have the correct arguments to oppose ? Therefore, let me turn this set of arguments into a set questions addressed to your expert community. I will be pleased to read your comments (I hope). Kind regards. *Dr. Christian M. Lachaud**, PhD* _________________ Lachaud, C. M. (2012).* **La Bible du Safranier. Tout Savoir sur le Crocus Sativus et sur le Safran.** *In Libro Veritas, France.* *258 pages.* *ISBN: 978-2-7466-4412-0 Consulter la fiche détaillée sur le site de l'éditeur : http://ilv-edition.com/librairie/…