The Study Progress on Breeding of Flax and Industrial Hemp in China

The breeding of flax and industrial hemp in China began in the 1950s. After the end of the 20th century, the development of related breeding technologies has been accelerating. The current main breeding techniques include cross breeding, mutagenesis, distant hybridization, utilization of male sterile flax, haploid breeding, hybrid breeding, tissue culture, transgene, gene editing, molecular marker assisted selection, and other technologies. Despite many new breeding techniques, cross breeding still are the main breeding method for flax and industrial hemp now. This paper introduced the production status, breeding history, germplasm collection, standard formulation, breeding methods, and new varieties of flax and industrial hemp. Analyzed some problems in flax and industrial hemp breeding, and put forward some suggestions.