Experiments were performed to determine if RAPD profiles developed using total DNA isolated from soybean seed could be affected by the physiological state or the quality of the seed. RAPD profiles were developed using template DNA isolated from a single seed lot of soybean (Glycine max L. cv. Kirby). High quality seeds were used to produce four populations varying in either quality or physiological state: untreated control seed ambient temperature and humidity storage for 12 months, accelerated aging at 41°C and 100% relative humidity for 48 h, and controlled hydration (seed priming). One hundred and eighty-eight primers were used to create separate RAPD profiles from total DNA isolated from each set of seed and from soybean leaf tissue. Sixteen polymorphisms from 14 primers were identified as a result of seed treatments. Six primers showed nine polymorphisms in RAPD profiles of ambient-stored seed DNA, while four and two primers produced polymorphisms in reactions using accelerated aged or primed-seed template DNA, respectively. Two primers showed a polymorphic fragment in vegetative DNA not observed in any of the seed DNA samples. Ten of the observed polymorphisms were due to the appearance of a DNA fragment in response to a specific seed treatment while six were the result of the treatment-induced loss of a DNA fragment. The six polymorphisms resulting from the loss of a major fragment were all due to ambient-temperature seed storage. Results were reproducibly obtained from multiple DNA isolations using three separate DNA isolation procedures involving either multiple seed or a single seed as the template source. Therefore, genetically identical seed can consistently display RAPD polymorphisms as a response to the environmental exposure.

In February 1937, a peace between the Hadramawt sultanates, the Qu[ain]aytī and Kathīrī and their tribes, totally unprecedented in the history of that region, was brought about essentially by the efforts of two men: Sayyid Sir Abū Bakr al-Kāf and Harold Ingrams, the first political officer in Hadramawt. This peace was known universally thereafter as “Ingrams Peace”, although the word “truce” is much in evidence in the contemporary documents studied below.

The prime object of this article is to examine in some detail some of the contemporary British documents directly or indirectly relevant to the phenomenon (for such it undoubtedly was!) of the late 1930s–early 1940s called “Ingrams Peace”. It is quite unashamedly a view of events through British eyes, through the eyes of the key players in the drama. They are allowed as far as is possible to speak for themselves. Let us first introduce the characters involved and set the scene.