Journal devoted to maize and allied species.

Plant Breeding Reviews presents state-of-the-art reviews on plant breeding and genetics covering horticultural, agronomic and forestry crops, incorporating both traditional and molecular methods. The contributions are authored by world authorities, anonymously reviewed, and edited by Professor Jules Janick of Perdue University, USA. The series is an indispensible resource for crop breeders, plant scientists, and teachers involved in crop improvement and genetic resources. Initiated in 1983, Plant Breeding Reviews is published in the form of one or two volumes per year. Recently published articles include: Epigenetics and Plant Breeding (v30) Enhancing Crop Gene Pools with Beneficial Traits Using Wild Relatives (v30) Coffee Germplasm Resources, Genomics and Breeding (v30) Molecular Genetics and Breeding for Fatty Acid Manipulation in Soybean (v30) Breeding Southern Highbush Blueberries (v30) Development of Fire Blight Resistance by Recombinant DNA Technology (v29)

A state-of-the-art overview on important topics relating to the breeding of agriculturally and horticulturally important plants. It continually monitors developments in plant breeding research and covers major field crops, horticultural crops and specialties.

Plant Breeding Reviews is an ongoing series presenting state-of-the art review articles on research in plant genetics, especially the breeding of commercially important crops. Articles perform the valuable function of collecting, comparing, and contrasting the primary journal literature in order to form an overview of the topic. This detailed analysis bridges the gap between the specialized researcher and the broader community of plant scientists.

Transposon tagging can work. Even though most of our understand ing about the factors that contribute to a successful tagging experiment has been accumulated from a limited number of experiments using different transposable elements in different genetic backgrounds, it is still possible to draw some conclusions regarding the best experimental strategies for gene tagging. In our experience, Spm has proved to be a good element for transposon tagging. The frequency of recovering mutable alleles in duced by Spm is not significantly different from that for Ac-Ds or for Mu 6 (summarized in Ref. 22) and varies from about 10- to 10=zr:-8pm has the unique advantage, however, in that all of the members of thiSfumily that have been examined thus far are homologous to each other at the DNA level. Therefore, by combining molecular analysis with genetic segre gation, it is possible to identify and isolate alleles that are due to insertions of either autonomous or nonautonomous Spm elements. There are definite steps one can take to increase the chances of de tecting a transposition into the gene of interest. The most important step is to select a genetic background in which the desired phenotype will be easy to screen. If the phenotype is not likely to be mutable, then tester lines should be constructed so as to contain flanking markers that can aid in subsequent segregation analyses.