The initiative behind a new Group 4 wheat is striving to help support two farming charities and raise awareness of the work they do.
Mindful is a new variety from Agrovista Seeds, with 10% of profits being donated to the Farming Community Network and RSABI.
Agrovista’s Jodie Champion says the company wants to help farming customers and their families access the emotional and practical support which both charities provide. “Many farmers face increasing business and personal pressures that can, if left unchecked, seriously affect mental and physical wellbeing.
“It’s vital that those involved in agriculture and their families have access to a sympathetic person at the end of the phone who understands farmers and rural life.”
In-field performance
From a performance perspective, technical seed specialist Stuart Cree says the variety has shown remarkable yield consistency and topped in-house trials in two very different years.
“Mindful offers a consistently strong performance across differing regions and drilling dates, and after a range of previous cropping and as a second wheat,” he says.
“This, bolstered by solid disease resistance and high specific weight, safeguards quality, yield, and value against difficult seasons, whether deluge or drought.”
AgX trials
Mindful achieved the top mean yield across Agrovista’s AgX trial sites in 2021 and 2022 at both extremes of the sowing window. Drilled in September 2022 it produced 14.89t/ha; late sown in November the same year it gave 15.44t/ha.
At Agrovista’s AgX site at Haddenham in Cambridgeshire it produced a two-year mean yield of 13.15t/ha.
Parentage
The variety has a solid combination of disease resistance ratings, suggestive of multi-gene protection derived from parents Evolution and Costello, says Stuart.
“Evolution delivered a step-change in disease resistance and high untreated yield, and Costello had total resistance to yellow rust. This resistance is only part of Mindful’s genome, promising similar stability over time,” he says.
An on-farm hit
Suffolk farmer Giles Western is growing Mindful for the second year in a row at his 400ha arable operation. Last season he grew 22.5ha of pre-basic seed drilled on 1 October 2021 at 125kg/ha, into heavy clay loam left fallow after April-lifted sugar beet.
“The crop looked good from the start,” says Giles. “It stood very well and clean, was early to harvest and cut like a dream.” The crop yielded 12.14t/ha.
Last autumn the 22.5ha field was resown with pre-basic Mindful and a further 35.5ha of C1 seed was grown after oilseed rape and sugar beet – the latter sown on 7 January at 300kg/ha.
“Based on my experience so far, I’ll keep growing Mindful for seed or feed,” says Giles.
