Six accessions belonging to four subspecies of Brassica rapa, including three accessions of B. rapa subsp. sylvestris, were crossed with B. oleracea subsp. alboglabra in order to develop a series of synthetic B. napus lines with a common C genome but contrasting A genomes. Different A genomes had significant effects on the efficiency of B. napus resynthesis and the sexual compatibility of the synthetic lines with oilseed rape cultivars. The synthetic lines were used to investigate the effect of A genome substitution on the resistance of B. napus to infection by Leptosphaeria maculans, and to explore the potential for the use of wild fortns of B. rapa in oilseed rape breeding programmes. Synthetic lines derived from two wild accessions of B. rapa, and their F, hybrids with oilseed rape cultivars, expressed high levels of resistance to L. maculans in glasshouse experiments. One of these lines also expressed high levels of resistance in field experiments in England and Australia when exposed to a genetically diverse pathogen population. All other synthetic lines and cultivars were highly susceptible in both glasshouse and field experiments. E, hybrids between oilseed rape cultivars and synthetic lines derived from B. rapa subsp. chinensis were significantly more susceptible than either parent.

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Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (RFLPs) were used to study the genetic diversity within and between accessions of 'wild' and cultivated B. rapa. Two of the wild accessions were likely to be escapes from cultivation because of their geographical origins (Argentina and California). The nature of the other three wild accessions (from Turkey, Algeria and Sicily) was not known. Principal components analysis placed the Argentinian, Californian and Turkish accessions within a cluster which contained all the cultivated forms of B. rapa. The other two B. rapa accessions were genetically divergent and, on the basis of their RFLP genotypes, would have been considered to be more distant from the cultivated forms of B. rapa than accessions of B. nigra and B. montana. The implications of these results for germplasm conservation, selection of material for breeding programmes and phylogenetic studies on the origin of Brassica crops are discussed.

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