'Svedjerug' Rye

Secale cereale Origin: Forest Finns of Norway Improvement status: Landrace Seeds per packet: ~70 Germination tested 12/2023: 96% Life cycle: Biennial We are beyond excited to be offering these fascinating and productive seeds thanks to our friend and grower Zach Elfers in Pennsylvania. Few seeds come with a story as improbable and delightful as these. We'll let Zach take it from here: "I first learned about Svedjerug rye through the work of Per Martin Tvengsberg, a Norwegian ethnologist and historian, who has written some fascinating articles on Finnforest slash-and-burn agriculture. The Finnforest culture occupied what are now parts of present-day Sweden, Finland, and Russia — the region known broadly as Karelia. The Finnforest people, or Forest Finns, were practitioners of shifting cultivation or "swiddening" methods which involved the sowing of rye and other crops into the fresh swiddens [landscapes cleared by slashing and burning] where once stood spruce or birch (the "huuhta" and