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This is a brief review of what is known about the role of pectate lyases in plants. The mode of action and three‐dimensional structure of microbial pectate lyases is discussed first and then the limited information on the plant proteins is presented. Pectate lyase‐like genes have been isolated from a wide range of plant tissues including germinating seeds, pollen, cell cultures, and ripening fruits. The abundance of ESTs for these genes in tomato and the presence of pectate lyase‐like transcripts in many other fruits may indicate that these enzymes have a more important role in ripening than previously suspected.