Fifteen lines of Brassica napus were resynthesized via ovule culture through 24 interspecific crosses between four Brassica oleracea and three Brassica campestris accessions. The degree of success in the interspecific crosses was significantly influenced by maternal genotypes. The interspecific hybrid production rate (HPR) varied with combinations from 0 to 76.9%, with a mean HPR of 24.7% for the crosses with B. campestris as the female parent and 6.9% for the crosses with B. oleracea as female parent. Twenty‐four crosses between seven natural and six resynthesized B. napus gave, on average, 10.3 seeds per pod, and ranged from 1.2 to 22.0 seeds per pod, depending on genotypes of both parents. Resynthesized lines of B. napus showed high erucic acid content and variable content of linolenic acid, ranging from 3.4% to 9.9%. The fatty acid composition in hybrid seeds between natural and resynthesized B. napus was dominated by the embryo genotypes; an additive mode was shown for erucic acid and positive over‐dominance for linolenic acid content.

The effect of genome composition and cytoplasm on petal colour was studied in Brassica. Three accessions of yellow-petalled B. rapa (2n ¼ 20, AA) were crossed with a white-petalled B. oleracea var. alboglabra (2n ¼ 18, CC) and with three cream-yellow-petalled B. oleracea var. gongylodes (2n ¼ 18, CC) to produce resynthesized B. napus (2n ¼ 38, AACC or CCAA) and sesquidiploids (2n ¼ 29, AAC or CAA). Petal colour was measured with a Hunter automatic colour difference meter. The results revealed that petal colour in Brassica is controlled by nuclear genes and by cytoplasmic factors. Additive and epistatic gene effects were involved in the action of nuclear genes. When crosses were made between yellowpetalled B. rapa and white-petalled B. oleracea var. alboglabra, significant additive, epistatic and cytoplasmic effects were found. White petal colour was partially epistatic over yellow petal colour. When crosses were made between yellow-petalled B. rapa and cream-yellow-petalled B. oleracea var. gongylodes, only epistatic effects were detected. Yellow petal colour was epistatic over creamyellow.