That prospect is not quite as far off as yet another new fertility technology, called apomixis.

ECONOMIST: Terminator genes

Yves Savidan and his colleagues at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre are also studying apomixis.

ECONOMIST: Genetic engineering: No sex, please, we��re plants | The

All of these proved to have lost a single chromosome (known as chromosome 16), which must therefore carry the apomixis genes.

ECONOMIST: Genetic engineering

That focused the search still further and the team was then able to employ more modern methods using genetic markers to show which small fraction of chromosome 16 the apomixis genes inhabit.

ECONOMIST: Genetic engineering

At the end of this month, they will announce a new research consortium with a number of other multinational agri-biotech firms, to pin down apomixis through the sharing of high-tech genomic tools and databases.

ECONOMIST: Terminator genes

Working out where on the hybrid's chromosomes the genes for apomixis are located was much trickier, because the traditional method of tracking genes down relies on watching them being swapped around during sexual reproduction.

ECONOMIST: Genetic engineering

Apomixis blocks a process called meiosis.

ECONOMIST: Genetic engineering