The report examines the professional competencies needed by postsecondary and secondary school agricultural education instructors. A questionnaire covering 11 functions, 39 tasks, and 89 competencies was administered by mail to the 435 vocational agriculture instructors in Wisconsin, of Whom nearly two-thirds of the secondary school and postsecondary production instructors and one-half of the postsecondary nonproduction instructors responded. A detailed examination by competency of the responses to the questionnaire indicates such things as: nonproduction respondents stressed inservice over preservice education for 23 of the 89 competencies; secondary and postsecondary production instructors either had no preference for one or the other or placed more emphasis on preservice programs; a positive relationship existed between the secondary and nonproduction respondents' participation in student teaching and their ability to plan for instruction; in general, respondents that had most frequently participated in inservice activities placed greater emphasis on the development of professional competencies in their inservice rather than their preservice educational programs. The report closes with brief discussions of competencies agriculture education instructors should possess, clientele needs, and adequate delivery system development. Four appendixes reproducing the questionnaire and tabulating the study's results comprise 40 pages. (JR)