Characterization of fiber flax accessions from the VIR collection, included in the Russian national catalogue according to their origin

Flax is one of the oldest cultivated plants. For thousands of years, it has remained the most important industrial crop.
VIR’s fiber flax collection incorporates 2487 accessions, consisting of 825 landraces, 667 commercial cultivars, 774 breeding lines and 103 inbred lines, 29 lines of mutagenic origin, and 85 other accessions.
The geography of their origin expands to 49 countries. The germplasm arrived to the collection from the Russian Federation (51%), Europe (38%), Asia (7%), North America (0.7%), South America (2%), and Australia (0.3%), while the origin of 1% was not identified.
The collection includes 1274 accessions representing all the Federal Districts (FD) of Russia. More than 43% of Russian accessions came from the Central FD, about 30% from the Northwestern FD, almost 11% from the Siberian FD, more than 8% from the Volga FD, and more than 7% from the Far Eastern FD. The North Caucasian FD and the Southern FD are represented by only one landrace each.
The collection also contains 938 accessions from 26 countries, covering all parts of Europe: Eastern (375), Northern (302), Western (247) and Southern (14); 177 accessions came from all regions of Asia: Eastern (152), Central (17), Western (6) and Southern (2). North America is represented by 19 accessions from the U.S. and Canada; South America by 46 accessions from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia; Australia by 7 commercial cultivars. 
The collection of fiber flax is in demand: both the landraces and the material developed by breeders are promising for various breeding purposes.

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