The variety is associated with a traditional agricultural technique called Svedjebruk, named after the plant. Forests were felled and burned, and the grain was sown directly into the ash.
Outmigration and modern farming methods caused the slash-and-burn cultivation to cease, and svedjerug disappeared.
For a long time the variety was believed to be extinct, but in the 1970s Per Martin Tvengsberg found ten grains in a drying shed in Finnskogen. He sowed the seeds and seven of them germinated! That was enough to carry the variant forward.