Recycled seed and impropriety of varieties can lead to reduced seed sales and unqualified low performance of the varieties. In Malawi, use of recycled seed of flue-cured tobacco, which is non grown by commercial growers, is non existent. These farmers yearly buy certified seed to grow in their fields. However, to ensure that unauthorised growers do not grow ARET varieties, male sterile varieties are required. ARET for this reason initiated a programme to incorporate cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) into the available varieties and breeding lines in order to produce male sterile varieties. The backcross programme to produce these type of varieties had reached BC7 by 2000 and at this stage, it was necessary to assess the CMS lines for trueness to type, yield and other characteristics in a field trial. Five BC7 lines were compared for yield and other characteristics with their flue breeding male sterile versions in a field trial. Plot size was 24 plants gross and 20 plants net spaced at 0.6m within rows and 1.2m between rows. All cultural practices recommended for flue-cured production were applied to the experiment. For all the data, a paired T-Test was perfrmed to compare the performance of the male sterile and the recurrent male fertile lines. This statistic tested whether or not the male sterile lines had through the backcrossing program been phenotypically converted to their recurrent male fertile parents. The data presented suggest that the CMS backcross lines tested in this trial were stable for trueness to type such that no further backcrossing would be necessary. The CMS lines were ready for use either in production of male sterile versions of the converted varieties or in production of hybrid seed.