THE SPREAD OF ROSEN RYE’ 
FRANK A. SPRAGG 
Michigan Experiment 
Station, East Lansing 
N 1909, the Michigan Agricultural 
College received a sample of pedi- 
greed rye from Russia. Since the 
Russian name of this rye was un- 
known, it was called Rosen rye, after 
J. A. Rosen, who sent it. Mr. Rosen 
was a Russian student who graduated 
from the Agricultural College in 1908. 
This sample was selected and tested 
by the Michigan Experiment Station, 
and 6 bushels of it were distributed in 
1912. As it was generally planted 
alongside of the common rye, only the 
offspring of one of these bushels could 
be continued as pedigreed rye, and this 
bushel was sent to Jackson County, 
Michigan. It was planted on an acre 
and yielded thirty-five bushels in 1913. 
Soon the whole countryside around 
Parma (in western Jackson County) 
and around Albion, in eastern Calhoun 
County, grew Rosen rye as a winter 
crop, and little or no wheat. Other 
counties took it up and, with the aid 
of an active county agricultural agent, 
the new rye spread rapidly. St. Joseph 
County early became a _ prosperous 
Rosen rye center, having 3,500 acres 
in 1917, while Jackson County had 
2,000 acres, the whole state having 
about 15,000. 
It seemed to take three or four years 
for this new rye to attract the notice 
and the confidence that was needed for 
rapid advance. Since 1916, however, 
its spread in Michigan has been 
almost phenomenal. This has been 
due chiefly to the intrinsic merit of the 
grain, combined with the aid of the 
Michigan Crop Improvement Associa- 
tion in maintaining the quality and 
purity of the seed produced. 
Field inspection began in 1917 under 
the leadership of the association’s 
secretary, Mr. J. W. Nicolson, East 
Lansing, Mich., and certified grain 
began to be sold to the farmers of other 
states as well as to Michigan farmers. 
As the result of this activity in war- 
time, when farmers were being urged 
to sow the best seed, approximately 
250,000 acres of Rosen rye were sown 
in Michigan in the fall of 1917. The 
trade also began to take notice of the 
new rye. It was quoted on the Detroit 
market that year, and carload lots 
began to be available for other states 
as well as in Michigan. 
HIGH YIELD AND INCREASED ACREAGE 
The inspectors of the Michigan Crop 
Improvement Association began work 
again in June, 1918, and during the- 
following month passed about 1,000 
acres. This acreage produced 22,349 
bushels, a gcod yield when it is re- 
membered that most of it grew on 
sandy soil, and that a yield of 15 
bushels per acre was considered a high 
return before the Rosen rye was in- 
troduced. Again, under the stress of 
war conditions, the acreage was almost 
doubled in one year, as considerably 
over 400,000 acres in Michigan were 
sown to Rosen rye in the fall of 1918. 
Growing Rosen rye in Michigan is 
now so general that even the common 
rye is mixed with it. It is now difficult 
to find the old-fashioned common rye 
for class purposes, and the college 
may soon be compelled to grow common 
rye as a curiosity. About 85% of the 
rye acreage of Michigan is more or less 
pure Rosen. Of this, less than 1.5% 
is pedigreed. Much of it is nearly as 
good as the pedigreed, but lost to record 
under the association. 
The growing of Rosen rye in other 
states began commercially as early as 
there was a supply. It has gone from 
1A detailed account of Rosen rye by Mr. Spragg appeared in the JouRNAL OF HEREDITY for 
December, 1918 (Vol. ix, No. 8).—Eb. 
42 
