The level of genetic variation detected among 7 sugar beet and 4 fodder beet breeding lines was compared to the variation found among 21 accessions of wild beets of the section Beta. RFLP analysis used a set of 32 sugar beet DNA sequences as probes to score a total of 351 bands over all accessions. The band data was used to calculate genetic distances between all pairs of accessions. The distance estimates were subsequently used in a cluster analysis to produce a dendrogram of genetic distances. The analysis unambiguously defined all accessions and clearly defined a fodder beet cluster within the sugar beet cluster. The cultivated beets were all separated from the wild beets. The sugar beet breeding lines showed a considerable amount of genetic variation, comparable with the level of variation detected among the wild beet accessions.