Patent ID: 8779237

Claim:
A method for enhancing seed yield-related traits in plants relative to corresponding wild-type plants, comprising (a) increasing expression in a plant of a nucleic acid encoding a Root Hairless polypeptide by introducing and expressing said nucleic acid in said plant; and (b) selecting for plants having enhanced seed yield-related traits relative to corresponding wild-type plants, wherein the nucleic acid encoding a Root Hairless polypeptide is selected from the group consisting of: (i) a nucleic acid encoding a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2 or SEQ ID NO: 10; (ii) a nucleic acid comprising the polynucleotide of SEQ ID NO: 1 or SEQ ID NO: 9; (iii) a nucleic acid encoding a polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence having at least 80% sequence identity to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2 or SEQ ID NO: 10; and (iv) a nucleic acid capable of hybridizing to the complement of the polynucleotide of the polynucleotide of SEQ ID NO: 1 or SEQ ID NO: 9 under high stringency conditions comprising hybridization at 65° C. in 1×SSC, or at 42° C. in 1×SSC and 50% formamide, followed by washing at 65° C. in 0.3×SSC.