Agriculture and Farming Atlas

How The World Is Fed
Crops

Rye

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Rye is a hardy cereal grass grown for grain, cover cropping and forage, tolerant of poor soils and cold that would fail wheat. Disputed evidence places rye among the cereals systematically cultivated as early as 13,000 years ago in the Euphrates valley of northern Syria; the more securely dated record shows it appearing in small quantities at Neolithic sites in Anatolia before becoming an independently cultivated crop in central Europe's Bronze Age, around 1800 to 1500 BC, likely spreading north first as an unintentional weed mixed into wheat fields.

Facts
Scientific Name
Secale cereale 1
Crop Class
Cereal 1
Domesticated When (Circa)
Circa 1800 to 1500 BC as an independently cultivated crop in central Europe's Bronze Age (a disputed, less secure claim places early cultivation as far back as 13,000 years ago in northern Syria) 1
Disputed
Domestication Region
Disputed: possibly Euphrates valley, northern Syria; securely established as an independent crop in central Europe 1
A disputed early claim places systematic cultivation in the Euphrates valley of northern Syria; the securely dated record instead shows independent cultivation established in central Europe.
Sources
1. Rye (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationlead section, HistoryView the Source
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