INDEX WORDSBrassica spp ., shatter-resistance, siliqua strength, field shatter . SUMMARY A new test procedure for measuring shatter-resistance of siliquae of Brassica s pp . i s described . A siliqua with its proximal end clamped is loaded as a cantilever in a testing machine . The maximum bending moment, the corresponding stiffness and the energy to cause the siliqua to rupture were taken as measures of the resistance of the siliqua to shatter . Studies showed that ranking of accessions based on either bending moment or energy closely approximated the rankings based on observations of field shatter . A reasonably high significant negative correlation was found between percentage of shattered siliquae and both bending moment and energy (r = -0 .595 and -0 .531 respecitvely, P = 0 .001). The above results indicated that bending moment and energy could be used as criteria in evaluating rapeseed genotypes for shatter-resistance in breeding programmes .