Workers at the Root Glass Company got the request and began flipping through the encyclopedia at the local library, landing on cocoa seed.

Sales of vegetable seeds such as green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and lettuce climbed 30 percent as of March at W. Atlee Burpee, a large seed company in Warminster, Pa.

But many of them, including Mahyco, a leading seed company in India, also are looking for genes to splice into crops.