At KWS Cereals we may be the new seed company kid on the block in the United States but globally, we’ve been around for a long time. We were founded in 1856 in Germany and since then our company has grown to now include operations in 70 countries worldwide. We are family owned and we treat our customers – our farmers – as part of that family.
When we first came to the U.S. just over 10 years ago to launch KWS Cereals we had big dreams. We knew American farmers care for their fields and are innovative which is why we knew we’d be a great fit. In the years since we’ve grown to a small but mighty team of eight with dealers and distributors from coast to coast.
Our sole focus is seed. We bring value to farmers through how we’re able to improve plant breeding and seed production. We don’t sell fertilizer, we don’t sell chemicals, we don’t sell seed treatments — we’re truly driven by advancing seed and seed technologies.
One of the crops we knew would fit like a glove in the U.S. was our hybrid rye varieties. In the past rye may have been viewed as a bad word on your farm, as it would lodge, become infected with ergot, be low yielding and you probably planted it on your worst land. Hybrid rye is not your granddad’s rye, it’s the crop that can change your farm.
Hybrid rye is a hybridized traditional open pollinated rye that’s made to be winter hardy and ergot resistant. It needs less nitrogen than winter wheat to grow, and across the board input costs are lower for it. We have five varieties for both grain and forage use that are made for the mid to northern states. Our varieties have double the yield of traditional ryes, with farmers having reported yields ranging from well over 100 to north of 150 bushels per acre. We’ve even saw fields go over the 200 bushels per acre mark.
When I talk to farmers, they’re always blown away by how our hybrid rye performs in their fields. They’re used to thinking of this crop that their granddad grew which wasn’t high yielding — it was big, it was bushy, and it fell over. My favorite comment is when guys call up and say this is the best-looking wheat crop I’ve ever seen. And I’m like, well, it’s actually not wheat, it’s a hybrid rye.
Every year we’ve seen hybrid rye acreage increase and expand — this is a trend we hope continues to climb. We have big goals for hybrid rye. Currently, the U.S. imports a lot of the rye we use. At KWS Cereals we want to change that. We want to grow this commodity on our own home soil to be able to meet the multi-market needs here in the U.S. We want hybrid rye to lose the speciality crop title and become a regular part of your crop rotation. Because to us and hopefully now to you, hybrid rye is the future.
