Abstract: The present invention provides a method of inducing seed development in plants, preferably in the absence of sexual fertilisation, said method comprising inhibiting or preventing the expression of one or more regulatory polypeptides that otherwise prevent asexual seed development in plants. The invention further provides novel genetic sequences. The invention further provides transformed plants having a wide range of novel phenotypes including, but not limited to, the ability to reproroduce asexually, develop seed in the absence of fertilisation, and the ability to produce parthenocarpic fruit or seedless fruit or fruits with soft seed traces such that the fruit are marketable as less seedy than wild-type fruit or seedless. The isolated nucleic acid molecules are further useful in the detectrion of proteins and genetic sequences which interact with the polypeptides encoded by said nucleic acid molecules in the regulation of seed development in plants.