Ruhi

Ruhi, pronounced roo-hee and taken from the Urdu word for soul, is a named selection made by Hugh Johnson of East Branch Ginger over roughly fifteen years, worked up from ginger of Indian origin. It was introduced to growers in 2012 to solve the single biggest obstacle to growing tropical seed ginger in the continental United States: the long, slow dormancy break that eats up a short northern season before the plant has done anything. Ruhi initiates foliage growth quickly and bulks its rhizomes sooner than the then-standard Big Kahuna, which lets growers in the Northeast and Midwest reach a saleable baby-ginger crop inside a single season. It is one of the very few edible ginger cultivars actually selected in North America rather than imported under a regional trade name, and both Cornell Small Farms and Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners flagged it as the variety that made northern ginger farming practical.