Recent rapid progress on the production of transgenic plants has led to an increasing number of field trials throughout the world by both commercial and academic groups. A brief, selective, review of progress achieved by conventional plant breeding and the expected life time of cultivars developed through this process is followed by details of recent experience gained from mutagenesis programmes, in particular the generation and marketing of imidazolinone-resistant maize in the USA. The role of RFLP-aided backcrossing to speed the development of such products is emphasised.Three specific types of transgenic product development are examined in some detail. The first two, namely herbicide resistance and tomatoes with improved processing characteristics are already close to market. The third example, that provided by woody species (either fruit or forest trees) is inevitably longer term because of the prolonged duration of the breeding cycle. Nevertheless, it may in the future provide some of the most valuable benefits such as improvements in the efficiency of paper production.