Donaghy, J.A., Levett, P.N. & Haylock, R.W. 1990. Changes in microbial populations during anaerobic flax retting. Journal of Applied Bacteriology69, 634–641.

The bacterial flora of industrial and laboratory scale anaerobic flax rets were determined at intervals throughout the rets. Although after an initial lag period total bacterial numbers remained roughly constant there were fluctuations in the bacterial species constituting the total. Pure culture rets and enzyme assays were used to determine which strains had retting potential. Of the strains demonstrated to have retting ability Bacillus licheniformis and B. subtilis were numerically dominant from 10 to 40 h and were succeeded in dominance by Clostridium acetobutylicum and Cl. felsineum.