Seed House "Sadovo": We operate at a high level!

The eighteenth consecutive edition of the WHEAT OPEN DAY of the Seed House “Sadovo”, the largest private breeding company in our country, part of the trading company ID Imperial, was held at the special trial-demonstration plot near the village of Bogdanitsa in the Plovdiv region.

The event, which gathered a large audience – agricultural producers from all over the country, took place under the sign of objectivity, realism and a constructive approach. The team of SH “Sadovo” presented what it can achieve today with a perspective and horizon for tomorrow. It positioned the vision of its conceptual strategy for sustainability and growth. The project is excellently structured and optimally balanced, including a range of well-established, recognizable wheat varieties, a new generation awaited with great professional curiosity, as well as tools for yield management in an uncertain climatic and phytosanitary environment.

The great energy charge of this intensive format generates dynamics, ensures success, stability and added value in conditions of high competition, and demonstrates the ability to meet high expectations. It provides a categorical response to the speculations and fake news created by opportunistic, “modern” analysts about a predetermined and inevitable end of Bulgarian wheat breeding. It proves that SH “Sadovo” is an indispensable factor in the production of this strategic agricultural crop in Bulgaria.

What is the general characteristic of the wheats in the commercial portfolio of SH “Sadovo”? All four varieties – Lazur, Trakiika, Apolon and Zebrets, are strong wheats with excellent baking qualities, adaptable to the soil and climatic conditions in our country, possessing mechanisms to cope with all kinds of abiotic challenges, and a very important competitive advantage – all four varieties are genetically resistant to economically important pathogenic pests, namely powdery mildew and the rust diseases – brown and yellow rust. The wheats are of an intensive type, early, with a very high productive potential. Their visual habitus is impressive – vigorous plants with a strong root system, sturdy stems, large leaves and ears. They are characterized by a rapid start and development and good tillering.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marina Marcheva, the scientific director of SH “Sadovo”, presented to the professional audience the new philosophy of the corporate breeding project, which sets a high target – 1000 kg/da!

“It is difficult to do something that others cannot,” states Ivan Dragushev, who more than 25 years ago founded ID Imperial, the agrochemicals trading company based in Plovdiv, of which the Seed House “Sadovo” is a part. Over this quarter of a century, Ivan Dragushev and my sons Svetlozar and Petar have indeed achieved things that others cannot. The example of SH “Sadovo” is indicative in several respects. The managerial and scientific management of the seed house has literally overtaken the domestic competition in the two state institutes. The four wheat varieties of SH “Sadovo” – Lazur, Trakiika, Apolon and Zebrets, continue to prove that Bulgarian wheat breeding has resistance to the cross-border invasion carried out by powerful companies with huge advertising budgets and all kinds of other financial capacities. The new generation of wheats from SH “Sadovo” – Zemela, Teres and No. 395, is an indication that the team of the seed house, managed by the Dragushev family, with professional competence and high expertise, continues at high speed to create new products, to generate innovations, to write history, to chart direct paths to success, and to defend the cause of Bulgarian agriculture.

This is undoubtedly a very difficult mission, carried out with dedication, courage, energy, entrepreneurial spirit, communicative brilliance and phenomenal dialogic skills. A mission that continues, with proverbial consistency, to rearrange market attitudes, to influence the agenda, to impose its own style and national representation, to prove that Bulgarian wheat breeding has a future and has competitive advantages.

SH “Sadovo” shows and proves to Bulgarian farmers that the fierce battle for supremacy between Bulgarian and foreign wheat breeding is not a battle of messages, but of products and technologies, of committed management, of vision. It proves that consistency is the key to developing leadership behaviour. It proves that business is a sequence of choices for which one must later bear responsibility. It proves that there are not many managers like the Dragushevs and the specialists from their team who have identified themselves to such an extent with their business. It could, without exaggeration, be said: they burn in it! This is part of their identity.