Evelina, a spring barley variety available from Mole Valley Farmers, is reportedly proving to be a consistent performer, with high quality grain, early harvest, tall straw and strong disease resistance.
“Evelina has been widely grown by our farmers for a number of years now, successfully achieving high yields of grain and straw across various seasons, having applied the correct use of bagged fertiliser and a full spray programme for weed and disease control,” said James Henderson, arable trader at Mole Valley.
“Evelina is quick to establish and is early mature and has excellent disease resistance. It produces a nice bold grain ideal for homegrown feed and with its extra straw length provides plenty of straw for bedding. Evelina continues to prove a popular and beneficial variety with livestock farmers.”
Mark Glanville, who runs a dairy and beef herd in Chard, Somerset, grows the variety for feed and notes that he has seen fantastic grain quality.
“We combine and crimp it, harvesting at 28% moisture,” he said. “We grew it for the first time last year and we are growing it again. The grain quality is exceptional, and that was despite the drought we had last year.”
He added that the early harvest suits his needs, while the tall straw is used to bed down the livestock. “The strong disease resistance profile is also a huge benefit, and we had a really clean grain sample last year.”
David James Smith runs a mixed farm in Angus and is seeing similar benefits. “Evelina is not too late, it’s good quality and is always clean. We grow on average 40 acres a year.
“The early harvest is beneficial to us up in Scotland and it has no disease issues. We will be growing it again this year, and have done for the last 5 years.”
Gemma Clarke, of Cope Seeds and Grains, which handles grain marketing for Mr Smith, said: “In UK trials, Evelina showed outstanding disease resistance with no weaknesses, the grains produced high specific weights and had low screenings.
“It has quick establishment and is early to mature and the straw was visibly taller than other varieties.”
