Rye crop in United States

Rye was domesticated in northern Europe in the fourth century BC and independently in Asia and the Middle East.

In the medieval Europe rye become a staple bread grain. Rye was brought to North America and western South America with settling of these areas by Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The pilgrims brought rye, barley and oats with them, but wheat. They ate rye breads.

In the United States, rye is more important as a cover crop, or for green manure and pasture than as grain.

Rye principally grown in northern regions: South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska.

Rye popularity in the United States has declined steadily since 1920, and the United States produces 2 percent of the world rye crop. It is the least economically important grain crop.

Rye berries representing the husked whole grain, can be cooked like rice. Whole rye flour is dark and contains most of the nutrients of rye berries.

Rye is the only cereal grass other than wheat that can be used to make cereal bread.

In United States rye is used for food, animal feed, industrial applications and seed. In this country rye bread is made of a combination of wheat and rye flours. Most of the rye crop is fed to stock.

Rye is used produce crackers and rye flakes are used as a hamburger extender. Rye is also fermented to make whiskey.  

Rye crop in United States

Rye cereal in general

Rye is a cereal grass that is second only to wheat in world popularity for bread baking, It has strong hearty flavor in bread and as a cereal.

Botanically name: Secale cereal L. The word ‘rye’ traces to the Old English ryge and seems similar to the Old High German rocko and Lithuanian rugys.

Whole rye flour is dark and contains most of the nutrients of rye berries. Light rye flour is a refined product.

Rye grains resemble those of wheat, but are longer and less plump, varying in color from yellowish brown to greenish gray.

Cracked rye is crushed rye berries. It can be cooked like cracked wheat or oats, as a breakfast cereal. Rolled rye flakes are produced by heating rye berries until soft and flattening them with steel rollers.

Rye is used to produce crackers and rye flakes are used as a hamburgers extender. In the United States, however, one of the main uses for rye is rye whiskey.

The health effects of rye have been the target of intensive research during the last 15 years. Rye is a good source of dietary fiber, phenolic compounds, vitamins, trace elements and minerals.

Rye cereal in general

Rye

Rye
There are three clearly defined species of rye:

• Secale cereal L., the cultivated species, which also exists as a highly diverse annual weed in farms in Iran, Afghanistan an Transcaspia;
• Secale montanum Gussh., an out-breeding, widely distributed assemblage of perennial races located from Morocco east through the Mediterranean countries to Iraq and Iran;
• Secale sylvestre Host., an annual in-breeder, which is widely distributed from Hungary to the steppes of southern Russia.
  

One additional taxon, Secale vavilovii Grossh., may be sufficiently unique to warrant species status.

Most authorities believe that S. cereale evolved from S. montanum Gush.

These two species are similar cytologically, but vary by two reciprocal translocations involving three pairs of chromosomes.

As with oats, rye developed as a secondary crop. It was probably picked up as a weed when the wheat-barley assemblage arrived in western Asia, where the native species are widely distributed.

Like the other grain species, agronomic traits, such as rachis fragility, ear branching and growth habit, are determined by only a few genes.

The precise origin of rye domestication is unknown, but it was being cultivated at several locations in the general area of Turkey, north western Iran and Armenia by 6000 BP.

Rye arrived in Europe as a cultivated crop by 4000 BP. Because of its tough constitution, it may have performed better than wheat and barley in the cooler, nutrient poor northern climates and therefore attracted human attraction.

In modern times, tetraploid and hexaploid wheat have been artificially hybridized with rye to form the new crop called Triticale.
Rye