Rye

The rye varieties that came over from England and Europe in the colonial era derived from strains in Northern Europe. They were originally summer crops harvested in autumn. In the American South their cold tolerance enabled them to be grown as winter cover crops. Several varieties of rye came over prior to the founding of the United States, and two established themselves in South Carolina. In the mountain west a white tall growing rye dominated—“mammoth white rye.” Along the coast a black seed variety prevailed. “Mountain rye” or “white rye” was the original whiskey rye of the American South. During Prohibition it became functionally extinct and was supplanted by Abruzzi Rye, a productive, robust variety found by USDA plant hunters in Italy in 1900 and promoted extensively by the Coker Seed Company of Hartsville, South Carolina. Black seed rye survived because it tolerated heat better than Abruzzi and became the favorite forage of piney woods and cracker cattle, hogs, and goats along the southeast coast.