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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-677
Rye
Secale cereale
Rye is the toughest of the cereal grains, thriving in cold, drought and poor soil where wheat and barley give up. The grain mills into the dark, dense bread flour of northern Europe and malts into beer and whiskey, while the whole plant doubles as one of the best cover crops available - it smothers weeds by sheer bulk and by releasing chemicals from its roots that suppress weed germination. Farmers also graze and cut it for winter forage, but the grain needs care at harvest: heads infected with ergot fungus turn dangerous, causing convulsions and gangrene in people and livestock that eat them.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Annual
- Mature height
- 2–5.9 ft
- Mature spread
- 6–12 in
- Plant spacing
- 4–12 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-deep
- Spread pattern
- None
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Adzuki Bean
Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi & H.Ohashi
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African Eggplant
Solanum aethiopicum
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African Rice
Oryza glaberrima
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Herbaceous
Agrimony
Agrimonia eupatoria
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Ajwain
Trachyspermum ammi
Ajwain is a frost-tender annual grown for a small, pungently aromatic seed used to flavor curries, pulses, breads and fried pastry, and just…
Herbaceous
Alfalfa
Medicago sativa
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Herbaceous · USDA 4–11
The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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