**7. Future perspectives**

Future work should be directed toward investigating various signaling and metabolic pathways during seed filling, and developing a feasible system for delimitating roles of different genes, their regulation and interactions during seed development to better understand roles of these reserve metabolites and their interactions. In addition, future studies could process RNAs, proteins, and metabolites as quantitative traits, offering new insights into the integration of omics tools and how these traits may regulate seed filling as well. In the future, these new insights will help to understand the biochemistry and physiology of the seed filling process at the molecular level and manipulate metabolic pathways to improve valuable seed traits through metabolic engineering. The duration of seed filling is under genetic control and influenced by environmental factors. Therefore, it could be used as a selection criterion in plant breeding programs that focus on yield enhancement. There is a need for multidisciplinary studies to delimitate steps in the synthetic pathways leading to seed storage compounds, and their regulation. In recent years, progress has been made in understanding the various aspects of seed development including seed filling, maturation, acquisition of desiccation tolerance, and post-maturation stages. Identification of important genes and regulatory pathways related to seed filling processes will provide useful tools for developing better strategies to improve seed production. New omics studies will expand our understanding of the processes associated with seed filling. Modeling the stages associated with seed filling, and seed quality will provide insights into seed development and lead to improved seed yield and quality.
