Kussmaul Seeds roots go back 77 years to 1934, when Rud Kussmaul
planted one acre of seed corn to sell to a few neighbors for extra
spending money. When Rud found an increasing interest in hybrid seed
corn, he asked his brother Al to join him as a salesman. This was the
start of Kussmaul Hybrids.
Through the years, as demand and sales increased, Rud focused on production,
and Al was on the road as the salesman. In addition to hybrid
seed corn, the company sold seed oats and succotash. Farmer dealers
were recruited through newspaper ads, fairs, and word of mouth.
By 1981, Kussmaul Hybrids had sales in 13 states and had outgrown
their production capacity; the brothers were now in their sixties and
none of their family members desired to continue the business, they
decided to sell the retail segment of Kussmaul Hybrids, and continue
with the farming and production segments. This decision seemed to
make more economic sense than to spend millions of dollars constructing
a new processing tower and additional warehouse space. Also,
with one brother concentrating solely on production and the other on
sales it was time to do some estate planning for the future.
In 1983, Al’s daughter married Paul Klinkhammer, who began working
for the brothers in their farming and seed production operation.
Through the 1980s, Paul learned about hybrid seed corn production
and about sales while selling seed oats to local farmers and retail
stores. These same customers kept asking why Kussmaul Hybrids had
discontinued seed corn sales and would they be resuming them.
Then 1988 hit us! The drought! In 1988, the company that Kussmaul
had been growing seed corn for decided they had better get more of
their seed production under irrigation. They ended their contract with
Kussmaul. This was Kussmaul’s opportunity to get back into retail again
and the birth of Kussmaul Seed Company.
Now with Paul running production and Al continuing with sales, a new
sales force was built. Many of our old customers rushed back, some
as customers, some as dealers. As sales grew, district and area sales
managers were added. Products were also added: alfalfa, soybeans and
forage seed. We purchased a large seed production facility previously
owned and operated by DeKalb and just 75 miles away from our office
and home farms.
Prior to the 2002 purchase, Kussmaul Seed had been using the facility
exclusively since 1989. Not only do we process our own seed, but we
also provide drying, shelling, grading, bagging and rebagging for several
other seed companies, nationally and internationally.
The Warren seed plant was originally built and operated by DeKalb with
continuous upgrades throughout the years. Kussmaul uses sweet corn
huskers to remove husks, as they are much more gentle on the seed corn
than conventional seed corn huskers. All dryers are equipped with computerized
climate controls to monitor temperature and reverse air flow.
Single pass dryers dry and remove moisture all from the bottom up or
top down. Reverse fl ow dryers, like ours, allow us to partially dry the
seed from the bottom up, then change air fl ow, and continue drying
from the top down. This concept keeps the bottom from getting
overdried, and the top underdried. The facility also has a heated conditioning
tower, two separate treating lines, and our own in-house lab.
Our plant manager – John Williston grew up in this plant, as his father
was the plant manager there for DeKalb. He and the DeKalb staff taught
John everything about seed corn processing.
Now in 2011 our 77th year of growing and providing seed corn to farmers,
we still remain an independent, family seed company. We wish to
thank all of our customers over the years who helped us get to where
we are today, and invite those prospective customers that we have not
yet met to join us. |
