Celebrating 30 Years of Performance Seed

The Stine family has roots in the soybean industry tracing back to 1871, when President Harry Stine’s great-grandparents first settled in Adel, Iowa. The humble family farm planted the seeds of the Stine dynasty that has yielded the largest, independently-owned seed company in the country.

Harry’s father, Bill, founded Stine Seed Farm, cleaning oat and soybean seed in the early 1950s. Harry joined the family business in 1964 and quickly developed an interest in soybean breeding. He began breeding and “yield checking” soybeans, a practice that was previously done only by university researchers. Harry recognized the profit and production potentials a breeding program could bring to soybean farmers and constructed a modern soybean production facility in Adel in 1966. By 1975, Stine Seed Company expanded their breeding program to develop seed corn.

Stine Seed Company launched their retail soybean efforts in 1979 using the slogan “Home of the New Varieties.” Five years later, Stine Seed boasted soybean sales of more than 500,000 units and expanded research locations east of the Mississippi River. From the beginning, service and expertise to farmer customers was paramount in building the seed business.

They reached another milestone in 1994 when Stine Seed became the first company in United States history to receive patents on soybean varieties. The patents protected the seeds, plants, pollens and ovules of Stine 1570 and 2550 soybeans, and symbolized Stine’s commitment to breeding and developing the world’s highest yielding soybean genetics.

By the late 1990s, Stine Seed Company added new products and services to better serve their customers. They entered into a non-exclusive research agreement with Monsanto, a move that would dramatically improve the soybean genetics that were made available to growers, not just from Stine but in a wide range of brands. In 1999, Stine Seed also started its agronomy services program to serve farmers by troubleshooting field issues and disseminating technical seed information.

Stine Seed Company celebrated 30 years of performance seed in 2009. Today, the company employs more than 400 people in 16 states.

Harry Stine once said, “The roots of our company are very deep in production agriculture. We are indeed farmers ourselves, so we think that we can identify the things that are beneficial to our farmer-customers.”

For more information on Stine’s history, visit the online history book or take a look at the seed catalog covers through the years.