"This is the first time I have seen the EWAC web site and I should like to congratulate you on setting it up. It should be a most useful vehicle for keeping in touch with research workers in wheat genetics as well as providing an invaluable source of information. I wish such technologies had been available when we started EWAC in the 1960s. It would have made things so much easier. Anyway congratulations once again and my best wishes for the future.

I was pleased to see that you listed some stocks particularly monosomic series in one of your Tables. I worry however that no-one seems to be taking up the monosomic series and using them directly in looking for varietal differences. For the most part the series are sitting in seed banks and are not being used. This is a pity particularly since a great deal of effort has gone into their development. It seems to me that this is a neglected area of wheat genetics which should be exploited more than it is. What is needed is a little bit of creative thinking in comparing monosomics from different varieties. I tried to develop this approach in a paper presented at the Sixth International Wheat Genetics Symposium in Japan in 1983. As far as I am aware no-one has touched it since. We showed that it was possible to pick out different height genes on the group 2 chromosomes by just comparing the monosomics of different varieties without having to hybridise them. I would have thought that this approach is still valid for picking up major allelic differences between varieties. This might be helped by comparing known molecular marker differences between varieties. However, how many of the varieties existing as monosomic series have been examined for marker differences? Hardly any I expect. Again I feel this is short sighted. Most effort goes into examining current varieties, forgetting the much larger variation existing amongst the already established monosomic varieties.

Any way I must not carry on talking like this or I shall be labelled as being past it!

Congratulations once again and keep on with the good work."

Colin Law