ROSEN RYE' 



Heavy Yielding Variety Brought by Russian Student — Farmers Cooperate 

 with Scientists in Keeping Up the Standard 



Frank A. Spkac;g. Plant Breeder, and J. VV. Nicolson, Extension Specialist. 

 Michigan Agricultural College, East Lansing, Mich. 



THE Rosen Rye has a shorter, 

 stiffer straw than is ordinary 

 and yields about twice as many 

 bushels per acre as the old-fash- 

 ioned common varieties, because the 

 Rosen heads are much larger and bet- 

 ter filled. The head is not longer than 

 the common rye, but gains in size and 

 weight through width and density. Rye 

 is four rowed. /. e., two flowers at each 

 joint of the rachis, alternating on the 

 head. In the case of the common va- 

 rieties only about half of these flowers 

 are fertilized, giving a rough, loose 

 appearance to the head. The kernels 

 of the common rye are small and usu- 

 ally covered by the chaff, while in the 

 Rosen Rye the large kernels project 

 beyond the glumes when ripe. Typical 

 Rosen Rye has less than 30 per cent 

 of its heads, with 10 per cent of the 

 grains missing. The result is that the 

 flowers are generally fertilized on most 

 of the heads. This gives the crop a 

 large, square-headed appearance. In 

 favorable years, nearly complete fertil- 

 ization may extend to 99 per cent of 

 the heads. 



Rye, as will probably be remembered, 

 is open-fertile. This accounts for the 

 irregularity c^bserved in the above de- 

 scription. In the case of autogamous 

 (close-fertile) plants, the crop becomes 

 a mixture of homozygotes which are 

 easily isolated by selection and pure- 

 line breeding. The breeding problem 

 in rye is that of corn in most details. 

 The first of this rye was planted at 

 M. A. C. (East Lansing), in the fall 

 of 1909. The Michigan Experiment 

 Station was not long in observing tlie 

 vast superiority of Rosen Rye over all 



others, and since it has been introduced 

 among farmers, several have reported 

 yields over fifty bushels per acre. 



Developing and maintaining a pure 

 strain of rye is one of the most ditft- 

 cut problems of a plant breeder, for 

 rye, unlike most of the other cereals, 

 such as wheat, oats and barley, cross 

 fertilizes — resembling corn in this char- 

 acteristic. The Danish people grow 

 their pure seed on an island off the 

 mainland. If we expect to keep our 

 Rosen Rye pure we should grow it a 

 quarter of a mile from common rye, 



Rosen Rye was selected and improved 

 from an envelope of Russian Rye, fur- 

 nished in 1909 by Mr. Rosen, a student 

 from Russia at the Michigan Agricul- 

 tural College. This variety immediately 

 began to show its outstanding supe- 

 riority, and after proving its ability to 

 double the yields obtainable with any 

 other variety, it was distributed in a 

 number of counties, and, where kept 

 pure, is continuing to maintain the rec- 

 ord established on the Experiment 

 Station plants. 



In 1912 a bushel of Rosen Rye was 

 sent to Mr. Ccirlton Horton of Albion, 

 '"his was sown on an acre and produced 

 35 bushels of rye of such quality that 

 not only that crop but those of follow- 

 ing years have been used entirely for 

 seed. Now we find 2,000 acres growing 

 in Jackson County, and 3,500 acres in 

 St. Joseph County, with a total for the 

 state of about 15,000 acres. 



Unfortunately, due to ordinary thresh- 

 ing practices and the growing of com- 

 "•"on rye in adioining fields, only about 

 5 per cent of this acreage is 99 oer 

 cent pure. The other 95 per cent has 



1 A part of this renort anneared in the Extrusion .Scries, pubhshed by the Michigan 

 Ajfriciiltural College, July, 1917. 



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