During the last two decades there has been a dramatic increase in our understanding of the chemistry and biology of nucleic acids. It is now possible to isolate individual genes and determine their structure, to modify the structure in a directed way and, for some organisms, to achieve a particular change in the function of the organism, with the gene active either in its ‘natural’ background or in a different organism.

It is widely believed that these techniques can be applied to crop plants, greatly to aid the production of improved varieties. It is the aim of this report to examine in detail for wheat, oilseed rape and faba beans the objectives of breeders of these crops in the EEC and to assess the scope for applying the techniques of molecular biology to achieve these objectives.

Taking a long perspective, it is known that for several millenia man has selected crops for ease of cultivation and harvest, greater yield, appropriate quality and resistance to pests and diseases. Scientific breeding, involving deliberate hybridisation followed by selection of the segregating progeny for particular traits of interest, has, with few exceptions, been carried out for less than a century.

Over this period there have been major changes in agricultural practices, notably the much greater use of fertilisers and the introduction of selective herbicides and improved pesticides and fungicides. These changes have relieved some constraints on yield and breeders have responded by modifying the form and growth patterns of their crops so that they can better exploit the improved environment.