Patent ID: 7476777

Claim:
A method for making infertile seed, said method comprising: a) growing a plurality of apomictic plants, wherein said plants comprise first and second nucleic acids, said first nucleic acid comprising a first transcription activator recognition site and a first promoter, said first recognition site and said first promoter operably linked to a sequence to be transcribed, said second nucleic acid comprising a second transcription activator recognition site and a second promoter, said second recognition site and said second promoter operably linked to a coding sequence that results in seed infertility, wherein said coding sequence that results in seed infertility is SEQ ID NO: 70; and wherein said plants comprise at least one activator nucleic acid comprising at least one coding sequence for a transcription activator that binds to at least one of said recognition sites, each said at least one transcription activator coding sequence having a promoter operably linked thereto, and wherein seeds that form on said plants are infertile, wherein said first and second promoters and said promoter operably linked to said at least one transcription activator coding sequence are selected from a CaMV35S minimal promoter and a rice or maize ubiquitin minimal promoter; wherein said first and second transcription activator recognition sites comprise from 1 to 5 copies of a UAS Hap1 upstream activator sequence element; and wherein said transcription activator is a chimeric polypeptide comprising a yeast HAP1 DNA binding domain and a herpes simplex VP16 transcription activator domain.