Seed Storage

• Quality Declared Seed (QDS) System: Introduced by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1993.
• Objective: Provides an organized, low-cost seed quality assurance protocol for developing countries that do not have the institutional capacity for full conventional seed certification, requiring at least 10% of seed fields to be officially verified. (Correct answer: Option 4)

• Assertion (A) is True: For a specific branded or private wheat variety 'X', many close substitutes (alternative certified varieties from public institutes or local seed producers) exist; hence, a unilateral increase in the price of variety 'X' leads farmers to switch to substitute varieties, causing a sharp drop in demand for that specific variety.
• Reason (R) is False: While aggregate demand for seed as an essential agricultural input is relatively inelastic, the demand for any single specific proprietary variety 'X' is highly elastic due to the abundance of direct varietal substitutes. Furthermore, if aggregate demand were inelastic, a price rise would NOT cause a significant fall in demand. Thus, the assertion that demand is inelastic does not support the premise.
• Conclusion: (A) is true but (R) is false (Option 3).

Correct option: (3) (A) is true but (R) is false

• Nutritive Storage Tissues in Mature Seeds:
• Hypocotyl: In Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa), the primary nutrient-storing tissue is an extraordinarily enlarged, oil- and protein-rich swollen hypocotyl, while cotyledons are rudimentary $\rightarrow$ (I)
• Perisperm: In Water lily (Nymphaea), as well as black pepper and beet, persistent nutritive diploid nucellar tissue forms the prominent perisperm $\rightarrow$ (II)
• Endosperm: In Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), residual triploid endosperm layers surround the embryo and store reserves $\rightarrow$ (III)
• Cotyledon: In Marigold (Tagetes) and diverse Asteraceae/Fabaceae, the massive embryonic cotyledons serve as the principal nutrient storage organ $\rightarrow$ (IV)
• Systematic Match: (A)-(I), (B)-(II), (C)-(III), (D)-(IV) corresponds to Option 4.

Correct option: (4) (A)- (I), (B)- (MI), (C)- (lll), (D)- (IV)