I found that many people don’t know about rye, so let’s briefly introduce it.

1. Origin Rye was originally a kind of weed, and it was a common weed in wheat fields.

Around the Xia and Shang dynasties in China, it was a warm climate. By the end of the late Shang dynasty and entered a cold period, the rest of the world was similar.

During that warm period, there were rhinos and elephants in Central China, which showed the degree of hot climate.

In Central and Western Asia, wheat can be planted far north, because the climate is too warm.

But after entering the cold period, things changed, and the wheat planting line began to gradually move southward. The places that were originally suitable for wheat cultivation became unsuitable because they were too cold.

Rye adapts to the environment and defeats wheat in competition, becoming the dominant crop in the local area. When the climate becomes increasingly harsh, rye is likely to cross with the remaining wheat in the local area and become a grain.

At this time, rye became the dominant crop in cold areas, with the main production areas in the high-altitude mountainous areas of Afghanistan and some Persia areas.

Due to its origin, rye has extremely strong cold resistance and hybridization ability.

Someone once did an experiment, and the location was Brandenburg (this place is not suitable for wheat cultivation, not a traditional German wheat cultivation area), wheat and rye 1:1 species, and all wheat turned into rye crops within three years.

The above experiments show that where the climatic conditions are not suitable for wheat growth, rye with more adaptability will spread at all costs and defeat the enemy at an astonishingly fast speed.

Farmers in the cold mountainous areas of Türkiye often try their best to remove rye from the wheat fields, but within a few years, rye began to invade from the outer edge of the wheat fields.

This example shows that in climates where wheat and rye can adapt, rye is still very tenacious and tries to seize the status of advantageous crops. Without the human intervention of Turkish farmers, wheat will lose.

2. After planting rye and introduced it to the Roman Empire westward, it was not valued at the beginning.

At that time, the Romans planted two wheat (tetraploid), breaded wheat (hexploid) and barley, and one wheat (diploid) was considered a weed. Some scientists also believe that one wheat was produced by the hybridization of weeds invading two wheat fields.

Bread wheat (hexploid), the origin of which is controversial, is said to be derived from the invasion of two wheat from goat grass.

There are a large number of weeds mixed in the wheat fields, many of which are parent types of various wheat plants, and hybridization is a widespread phenomenon.

For example, Spert wheat (hexploid), a crop that crossed locally after being introduced to Europe by two wheat, was originally found in the auspicious soil.

There are also things like bat wheat (with goat grass chromosomes), which are suspected to be hexploid wheat that hybridizes goat grass and tetraploid wheat.

It's too far, now we're talking about rye.

Rye is diploid. After entering the Roman Empire, the first planted in the Alps was the Alps and then spread in Gaul, becoming the first choice for the local barren and cold mountainous areas and a large number of dry and hard soil areas.

Later, we slowly entered the barbarian areas, such as central and northern Germany.

After the fall of Rome, attention was widely spread in the Slavic region. This was the "early Slavic region", such as Holstein, Brandenburg, Saxony, Silesia, etc. The eastern part of Germany is conquered by medieval Germans.

Expel the land obtained by the Slavs.

Rye spread to Britain at this time.

Even! Because of the barbarian invasion, rye actually passed back to northern Italy and even southern Italy like a black humor.

However, it is likely that entering southern Italy was a natural hybrid variety that appeared at that time, namely, a kind of triticale or rye produced by diploid rye and hexploid wheat (I don’t know if it is hexploid or octaploid-).

Trichosan or rye is a good thing. It has the yield of wheat and the stress resistance of rye-- stress resistance is an academic term that refers to certain traits that plants have to resist unfavorable environments; such as cold resistance, drought resistance, salt resistance, disease and pest resistance, etc.

But I don’t know why it hasn’t become popular, it may be too unpalatable.

Finally, after rye was introduced to Europe, a pattern was formed. The nobles of Western Europeans ate bread and wheat because it could produce the best quality bread flour. However, this wheat was not resistant to diseases and could not be promoted on a large scale. It could only be used exclusively for the masters. In the early Middle Ages (China's Southern and Northern Dynasties), bread and wheat were actually grown in the vegetable garden!!!

Ordinary people eat tetraploid two grains of wheat. If they can eat wheat, it is normal for serfs to not eat the food they grow.

Because the barbarians are mostly in Central and Eastern Europe and Northern Europe, they eat rye or oats. Oats were originally considered weeds. They were mixed in two grains of wheat and introduced them to Europe from West Asia. They didn't know how to cross them locally, so they made oats that were cereals.

In 806 (China's Tang Dynasty), there was a record in Western Europe or England: a dou of wheat is worth 6 (forgot the currency unit), rye 4, Spelt wheat or barley is worth 3, and it is basically this price ratio, for reference only.

3. When did rye spread to China?

Some say that the Mongols brought it back in the Western Expedition of the Yuan Dynasty, because there was a single word about "rye" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

But is the "rye" mentioned by people at that time the rye we are talking about today? This is controversial.

My book says that regional small-scale planting began in the Qing Dynasty, and I believed this statement, but it is not necessarily true.

Many people think it was actually introduced in modern times.

It was not spread to China in the entire ancient times, nor was spread in it, it was not taken seriously, it was forgotten, etc.

Where are the rye-producing areas in China in the 21st century? Cold areas such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Northeast China, but the sowing area is not large, because with the support of modern agricultural technology, wheat and rice with strong cold resistance are available.

In the northeast, rye is grown only as a rotation crop in barren mountainous areas, with the goal of "improving soil structure."

In Inner Mongolia, rye is grown as a feed source.

In Xinjiang, rye is grown because it is drought-resistant and barren-resistant.

In fact, it was the same as the evaluation of rye in the early Middle Ages in Europe: "the primary crop in arid and barren mountainous areas" and "can be planted on cold, flint-like hard ground" (probably to improve soil structure).

Finally, let’s talk about the Russian example.

We all know that the late Ming Dynasty was the Little Ice Age, and 1656 was the coldest time, and Tsarist Russia was already in Ilimsk.

Albazin (where is Baidu) and other places have built bases and planned to build the Nerchinsk Fort.

Amur military and political chief Pashkov took 300 Cossacks from Yenisesk, and another 660 Cossacks set out from the other route (all frozen to death in the second half of the way) and headed to Albazin.

When Pashkov arrived in Ilimsk, there were 250 rosy stone (volume unit, 1 rosy stone = 209.91 liters) and 500 rosy (1 rosy stone = 16.38 kilograms) wheat seeds.

1656 is definitely colder than 1644, because the extremely cold weather in the Little Glacier in the late Ming Dynasty did not bottom out during the Kangxi period, and then the temperature rebounded.

The Russians had not had this thing, and the governor's residence of Tsarist Russia in the Far East was Yakutsk (founded in 1632).

2018), the entire city was built on permafrost, where Khabarov made a fortune by growing grain here. When he was founded, he even donated 3,000 Putty rye flour. Later, he was arrested by Governor Golovin on the name of tax evasion.

In modern times, Siberia and the Far East, rye is still widely grown.

Finally, there is a question: Are rye from Roman times, rye from 1656 the same as rye from the 21st century?

The 21st century is definitely different.

So is the Roman period the same as in 1656? It is hard to say.

But no matter what, this thing has been widely grown in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe since the beginning, and it has definitely strong cold resistance and has experienced more than once the small glacier climate test.

During the warm period, the Bohai Kingdom all planted rice in Xingkai Lake, but once the temperature dropped, it would not be planted immediately. For example, during the fifth generation (this is another small ice age), the global cold caused by the volcanic eruption.

So, if you can’t plant rice, can you plant something else? For example, wheat and millet?

In theory, it is OK, but there is a risk: the climate in the small glacier is not only cold on average, but the most disgusting thing is the frequent occurrence of extreme climates.

When you grow wheat and millet, you will get severe frost or even heavy snow during the critical period of growth, and the particles will not be harvested immediately.

If you do it a few more times, you will go bankrupt.

Therefore, the Northeast civilization always develops during the warm period, and then it is immediately overwhelmed during the cold period, and then the massacres are added to the public. The civilizations in the Northeast region in Chinese history have been repeatedly and periodically cleared.

It was obvious that the Bohai Sea state-owned city was in the Tang Dynasty, and people even went to Chang'an to pass the Bingong Jinshi (examination subjects specially offered for foreigners, and issued Bingong local diplomas), and sailed to Japan for trade. They were called "Haidong Shengguo". They even controlled the Hei River north of Heilongjiang for a time, but why did they become the primitive fishing and hunting primitive people in the late Ming Dynasty?

Agricultural civilization is always caused by the climate, and man-made destruction is the main reason.
Chapter completed!