The current and potential importance of plant tissue culture techniques in crop improvement is hard to overemphasize. There are few areas where these techniques will have more possible im­ pact than in tropical agriculture, where the availability of high productivity varieties is sadly lacking in many species. The potential for the rapid, clonal propagation of elite individuals and the use of controlled multiline planting could have a major effect on crop yield and disease resistance in many areas of the world. This volume is a collection of papers presented at the Con­ ference on "Crop Improvement Through Tissue Culture", held at the Base Institute, Calcutta, India in December 1981. It attempts to bring together local research workers, familiar with the agri­ cultural resources of the area and tissue culture and molecular 4 level workers. It was the hope of the conference that the "cross fertilization" of ideas would lead to new approaches and activity in this area. The editors trustthat this collection of papers will stimu~ late interest and research in the tissue culture and improvement of crop plants everywhere. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The symposium from which the papers in this book are drawn was held at Bose Institute, Calcutta on December 6 to December 10, 1981.