A dispersed, rye-specific element has been used to isolate clones of rye origin from wheat plants containing only a single rye chromosome arm or segment. In this way a set of 23 YAC clones has been isolated from the short arm of rye chromosome 1 (1RS). This technique was extended to isolate clones from a small region of 1RS that contains a large number of agronomically important genes. The targeted cloning method allowed the isolation of 26 classes of lambda clones representing about 5% of the region. Ten of the lambda clones could be mapped to segments within this region. A third example of the application of this technique involved the isolation of clones from a very small but fully functional rye chromosome, the midget chromosome. These clones have allowed the confirmation of the origin of the midget from 1RL, and may provide a tool for the isolation of structural elements of cereal chromosomes. This technique allows the identification of clone libraries for any rye chromosome or chromosome arm, since substitution, addition and translocation lines are available for all rye chromosomes. Furthermore, the technique allows isolation of clones derived from segments of the rye genome recombined into wheat. The method is technically simple and both lambda and YAC libraries can be constructed. Synteny between the genomes of the cereals allows region-specific libraries from rye to be used to target regions of the wheat and barley genomes.