The conservation of crop genetic resources is mainly carried out ex situ. The highest numbers of flax accessions in the world
(6243) are stored at the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR). The VIR flax collection was officially founded in
1922. It contains flax from all continents except Antarctica, from foreign Europe (1946 accessions) and Asia (1695), Russia (1696), North
(301), South (248) Americas, Africa (220), Australia and Oceania (64). In total, the collection presents flax varieties from 83 countries.
10% of the collection are local forms, 40% are primitive selection samples, 24% are breeding material, 25% are developed varieties and lines, less than 1% is wild flaxes. The uniqueness of the VIR flax collection lies in the presence of more than 1900 accessions collected
in 55 countries during more than 120 VIR expeditions. The replenishment of the collection can be divided into five stages related to historical events against which is took place. Before introduction the collection, all flax accessions undergo a comprehensive evaluation
of the main morphological and economically valuable characters. Additional study of parts of the collection is aimed at determining
the principles of creating and structuring the collection, assessing the influence of environmental conditions on the flax development,
determining fiber quality by different methods, studying the seeds biochemical composition, genetic control of various flax traits.
Conservation of genetic resources in a changing world is one of the primary tasks facing all states. VIR makes the greatest possible
contribution to the solution to this task