“…Infected seed is of major importance in the epidemiology of alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV), Randomly distributed primary infections result from such seed (e,g, Frosheiser, 1969(e,g, Frosheiser, , 1970Hemmati & McLean, 1977) and subsequent secondary spread by several aphid species (Crill et ai, 1970) often leads to decreases in forage yield (Gibbs, 1962;Tu & Holmes, 1980;Bailiss & Ollennu, 1986) even though the virus does not invariably induce symptoms in lucerne (Jaspars & Bos, 1980;Bailiss & Ollennu, 1986). AMV often reaches a high incidence in lucerne seed (Frosheiser, 1974) but levels may be considerably influenced by virus strain, host cultivar and environmental conditions (Frosheiser, 1974;Hiruki & Miczynski, 1987), The virus is transmitted to lucerne seed via both ovule and pollen (Frosheiser, 1974;Hemmati & McLean, 1977) and virus particles have been observed in anthers, pollen grains, embryonic cotyledons and ovary walls (Wilcoxson et al, 1975) and AMV antigen detected by immunogold labelling in the ovule integuments (but not the embryo sac), pollen grains and tapetum cells of infected flowers (Pesic etal., 1988),…”