Interview of Mr Jean-Paul TROUVE, TERRE DE LIN breeding manager
Breeding, key point of flax fibers improvement.
-
TERRE DE LIN
Could you explain us how breeding brought improvement on flax fibers production ?
-
Jean-Paul TROUVE
We are using natural genealogical breeding by pollinating manually two different flax varieties to combine theirs characteristics. To help us, we got a huge collection of flax varieties, linseed varieties and wild flax.
If we look backward on the last 20 years, we made important improvements :
• Natural resistance to 3 diseases : scorch, wilt, oïdium
• Significant advancement on lodging resistance
• Varieties with better fibers quality
• Yield increase of an average of 35Kg/year
• Better knowledge of flax genetic
-
TERRE DE LIN
What will be the next steps ?
-
Jean-Paul TROUVE
We will go on working about natural resistance of flax. Flax is environment-friendly, but we want to go further :
• Verticillum and Septoria, those 2 diseases still can be problematic some years for flax fibers production and quality. We are working to obtain natural resistant varieties.
• Lodging resistance, early varieties, seed yield and quality of fibers are also a key point to improve flax fibers production and quality
Our aim is to get a self growing flax with high potential of quality and fibers yield
TERRE DE LIN flax research data :
- Research team of 9 persons
- 20 ha. of trials
- International recognition of our expertise
- Breeder of the leading flax varieties in Europe