In order to obtain basic information for breeding varieties of forage rape which is suitable at the southern part of Korea, seventeen introduced varieties were grown from Sep. 1986 to May 1987 at Mokpo Branch Station, Crop Experiment Station, and yield components and nutrient quality of plants were observed. The results obtained are summarized as follows: l. Forage rape cv. Velox showed higher dry matter yield than any other variety used in the experiment. It showed relatively high content of crude protein and in vitro dry matter digestibility(IVDMD) and low content of NDF, ADF, cellulose and lignin. Therefore, it was concluded that Velox was the most suitable variety with high yield and high nutrient quality at the southern part of Korea. 2. The heritabilities of all the observed characters but hemicellulose were estimated to be large. 3. Total dry matter yield showed highly significant positive correlations with plant length, stem diameter, number of main stem leaves, fresh yield, stem dry matter yield, leaf dry matter yield, in vitro dry matter digestibility(IVDMD) and digestible dry matter yield(DDMY). These characters mentioned above showed negative correlations with content of NDF, ADF, cellulose and lignin. 4. According to the result of path coefficient analysis, characters highly correlated with total dry matter yield showed large direct effects on total dry matter yield.