Abstract: Photorespiration in photosynthetic cells proceeds through the glycolate pathway. We assumed that the accumulation of glycolate, the glycolate oxidase activity and the net photosynthetic rate may be used as criteria of photorespiration activity for different crop varieties. Simple method for quantitative determination of glycolate and estimation of glycolate oxidase activity in the functional leaves of wheat were described in this report. The preliminary resultes showed that differences do exist in the amount of glycolate accumulated, the activity of glycolate oxidase and the net photosynthetic rate in different varieties of wheat, especially during the milk stage. These differences seemed to be correlated with the high yield behaviour of different wheat varieties. These simple methods described in this paper may be of some value in the selection of high photosynthetically efficient varieties in crop plants.