Flax. But which flax?

All cultivated flax belongs to the Linum usitatissimum L. species, of which there are hundreds of different varieties.
Some of these varieties are commercial and it is these that are currently used for the commercial production of flax for various purposes, as they are more productive.
There are also traditional varieties which, although they are not grown commercially, in addition to being adapted to local conditions, contain a great deal of genetic wealth and, as such, it is very important that they are maintained.

Among the different varieties that exist, some are more suitable for fiber and others for producing seed, which is used for various purposes.
The varieties best suited to textile purposes usually have a longer, unbranched stem, ensuring that the fibers are longer. The varieties most suitable for seed production tend to have shorter, highly branched stems. Please note that a variety may not have a clear vocation for one purpose or another, and may have a mixed purpose.

So, once we've decided that we're going to sow flax, the question to ask is which flax are we going to sow?
For the cultivation at Quinta de Serralves, which began in 2015, we took two things into account: the first is that the purpose of this flax is to obtain textile fiber and the second is that we wanted it to be a traditional variety.

In Portugal, the two traditional varieties that were most commonly cultivated were Linho Galego, which is a spring flax, and Linho Mourisco, which is a winter flax.
There are references to traditional flax with common names such as Coimbrão, Verdeal , Abertiço, Serrano and Riga Nacional, among others, but there is no scientific data to confirm whether they were in fact different varieties (with different characteristics), or whether they were the same variety with different common names, given locally.

Spring flax is sown in March/April, has a shorter cycle that usually ends in June/July and is usually the one that grows well enough to produce good fiber. Linho Galego was known for producing a finer, more delicate fiber.
Winter flax is sown in October/November, has a winter cycle that ends at almost the same time as the spring flax and therefore stays in the ground much longer, and is usually the most suitable plant for producing linseed. The Mourisco, despite being a taller plant, produces rougher fibers than the Galego, as well as more tow and straw waste.

If we know that these national varieties rarely grow more than 40/50cm tall, and that foreign varieties designed for fiber grow up to a meter tall, it's not hard to see that the disadvantage is that the yield of fiber produced per cultivated area will be much lower for our varieties.
However, speaking of quality and not yield, Galego Flax, when well cultivated and processed, produces very fine, high quality fibers which, according to some testimonies from those who process and work this fiber every year, are more delicate than many more profitable varieties and lend themselves to producing finer yarns. In other words, it's not the most profitable variety, but what it does produce is of good quality.

Moral of the story: on the Serralves farm, we planted Galego flax.