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This fourth volume on In Vitro Haploid Production in Higher Plants comprises 11 chapters on cereal haploid production. All chapters are crop specific and each chapter contains an introduction about the selected plant, the techniques (anther culture, microspore culture, ovary/ovule culture) that have been successfully used for haploid production, the factors that have influenced the success of these techniques, the identification and genetic characterization of haploid regenerants, the application of haploids in breeding, and a brief conclusion on the potential of haploid breeding in the specific crop. The chapters contained review haploidy in cereal crops including rice (Oryza sativa), maize (Zea mays), wheat (Triticum aestivum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), triticale, ryegrass (Lolium spp.), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), rye (Secale cereale) and oat (Avena sativa). Some chapters also include a discussion of the potential of protoplast manipulations and genetic transformation of the particular crop under discussion.

The genesis of the International Food Legume Research Conference (IFLRC) can be traced back to 1983 - and so this Volume, the Proceedings of that Conference, has had a gestation period of close to five years. Professor Norman Simmonds, the perennial Book Review Editor of Experimental Agriculture, has expressed the opinion (vol. 22, p. 201, 1986) that "Many symposial volumes are just plain awful!" Elsewhere (Nature vol. 312, pp. 201-2, 1984), Anthony Watkinson - then a Commissioning Editor at Oxford University Press has described several reasons which have led him to believe that "Conference proceedings - symposia - are generally disliked . . . . To put it mildly, this type of publication has a bad name". The problems, from an author's perspective, of contributing to any many-authored publication are aired in an exchange of correspondence in Biologist (vol. 30, pp. 123 and 180, 1983; and vol. 31, pp. 3 and 69,1984). And from the editor's viewpoint, D. J. Weatherall - then Nuffield Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford - has described (Nature vol. 317, p.

This Symposium, held August 4-10, 1985 on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis, is the sixth of a series of international symposia concerned with broad aspects of the fixation of nitrogen gas by biological and chemical means. The first symposium of this series was held in Pullman, Washington (1974), the second in Salamanca, Spain (1976), the third in Madison, Wisconsin (1978), the fourth in Canberra, Australia (1980) and the fifth in Noordwij~erhout, The Netherlands (1983). Prior to the organization of these symposia, small groups of usually no more than 10 or 12 of the now "old guard" in the field met in some obscure places, including Butternut Lake, Wisconsin, Sanabel Island, Florida and Camp Sage hen in California, to discuss developments in the field. Concern about an energy crisis in the nineteen seventies served as an impetus for the organization of workshops and preparatiol. of publications urging government agencies to provide funds for the support of several neglected areas in the field, including the genetics of nitrogen-fixing organisms and the biology of Frankia. In looking back, it becomes apparent that there have been drastic changes in the extent of research support in the field and in the contents of the programs of the continuing series of symposia.