Engineering bast fiber feedstocks for use in composite materials

Bast fibers (i.e. the phloem fibers of crops such as flax and hemp) have been used for millennia in textiles and cordage and are now promising feedstocks for the production of strong, light weight, renewable composite materials. Several factors limit the broad commercial application of bast fibers in composites, including: (i) variability of fiber properties, (ii) their poor adhesion with conventional resins, (iii) moisture absorption by natural fibers and (iv) cost of production, especially as this relates to extraction of high-quality fibers. These problems will be discussed in the context of fiber developmental biology and of potential solutions enabled by genomics and biotechnology.