Leaf ageing was initiated in wheat leaves by floating excised leaves on distilled water in darkness for up to three days. After a given period of time the leaves were blotted and wilted to a leaf water potential (Οleaf) of approximately - 12 Β· 10(2) k Pa and then placed in a sealed chamber so that the stress-induced ethylene could be determined. The longer the period of leaf ageing the smaller were the levels of stress-induced ethylene. Treatments which are known to delay leaf senescence, such as floating the leaves on solutions of 6-benzyladenine (BA) or in the light instead of in the dark, were found to partly restore or even enhance the stress-induced ethylene levels. For example leaves allowed to age for 1 day whilst floating on 10(-4) mol l(-1) BA solution produced up to 200% more ethylene than freshly harvested leaves when both were subjected to water stress treatment. When BA solutions were applied as foliar sprays to wheat seedlings, the day before wilting treatment, the amount of stress-induced ethylene diffusing from the freshly harvested leaves (i.e. no leaf ageing treatment) was significantly increased. This occurred when water stress was induced in the leaves by either immersing the roots of seedlings in carbowax solution or by wilting excised leaves in a stream of warm air. There was a substantial synergistic effect between BA treatment and water stress in relation to the amount of ethylene diffusing from the leaves. This effect was 7.5-fold in experiments where excised leaves were floated on 10(-4) moll(-1) BA solutions for 1 day prior to wilting and 4.7-fold for intact plants where the BA solution was applied as a foliar spray the day before water stress induction by carbowax. We can postulate from the experiments in this paper that leaf ageing (and/or the depletion of an ethylene substrate, probably a photosynthetic product or a substance derived from it) and the level of endogenous cytokinin are probably important factors which determine the amount of ethylene emanating from leaves during water stress. Moreover, the results suggest that wheat shoots may contain sub-optimal levels of cytokinins in regard to their potential ability to produce ethylene under stress.