Stone Seed Group

Description

About Us - Past, Present, and into the future. . . Stone Seed was started in 1928 by Rolland Stone and his father. Their intention was to produce a small quantity of seed corn for their own use and offset the cost by selling some to their friends and neighbors. Most all corn at this time was of the open pollinated variety. Preliminary work was just getting started on hybrids. http://avbarn.museum.state.il.us/BioID/121 Rolland was able to establish a rather loyal following in the next few years while, at the same time, working closely with the University of Illinois on their basic hybrid corn program. Little did he and other seedsmen of the day know of the revolution in Agriculture that was about to occur. In the mid-1930s, Rolland offered his first self-produced hybrid varieties. These hybrids, derived from university research, were greeted with much acclaim. Stone Seed was off and running. In the next 10-15 years, hybrids went from 2% of the total corn base to over 90%. Rolland continued to build the family business and tend to farming until his son, Richard, graduated from the University of Illinois. Richard's main love was farming. Throughout the 1960s he increased Stone Seed's acreage and continued to build and improve the production side of the business. Contract production was becoming a popular practice. Larger companies, wanting to spread their risk, had other seedsmen produce portions of their crop. Richard was very good at cultivating some of the leaders of the day into growing corn with him. As a result, Stone Seed grew significantly during the next 20 years. 1980 was the year that Richard's son Andrew graduated from the University of Illinois. He and Richard agreed that the nature of the seed industry was changing. Seed companies were doing more of their own production and thus the contract business had become more and more unpredictable. The decision was made to sell more seed under their own brand and to develop improved marketing channels. Thus began the expansion of our retail side. In the 1990s agriculture and the seed industry saw yet another revolution. The advent of biotechnology heralded a change that was similar to what Rolland saw with the coming of hybrid technology. Stone Seed continued to grow and expand while working hard to ensure it had the best access to premium genetics and technologies. In 1996, Stone Seed helped form a group of regional seed companies that became known as The CORE Group. It was created to help ensure continued access to traits and to explore efficiencies of scale. We quickly discovered the benefits of large area testing and the strength of combined marketing strategies. In the early 2000s The CORE Group continued to work together and expand its testing and evaluation of promising hybrids and technologies. Throughout this period, Stone Seed also worked hard at establishing new market areas. We expanded our scope in Illinois and into the state of Missouri. In a few short years, Stone Seed had established itself as a company offering great hybrids and unsurpassed customer service for many new friends in Missouri. September of 2005 saw Stone Seed and three other CORE Group members acquired by ASI.

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