|
| I was a District Sales Manager in southeastern Wisconsin for, (1st) Funk Bros. Seed Co. then Funk Seeds International. Eventually after being publicly owned at one time and being owned by Corn Products Company International (CPC International), they were bought by CIBA GEIGY soon to be swallowed up by the parent company and eventually under the "umbrella" of Syngenta.
I was there when Southern Corn Leaf Blight hit and it was a great day for Funk's G Hybrids, for we were the ONLY company that had forseen this occurance, (I recall a meeting in Chicago when ALL the district reps were brought in for the announcement that "next year we will be going back to detassling our seed because of a thing called "T Cytoplasm" that created male sterility, but ALSO allowed a "new disease" to attach offspring of that parent).
There was a huge groan in the room for we all knew that was going to increase seed prices, and at that point we had no idea how bad SCLB would turn out to be.
Yes G-4444 was "king of the hill" not only because of SCLB but also because it far surpassed DeKalb's XL45 which was the "hot hybrid" prior to G-4444.
The Funk company that produced G-4444 was NOT Edw. J Funk and son's of Kentland In. !!!! Edw. J. used to love it when they were confused with Funk's G Hybrids!!!
Here is a link that will take you to the story of Eugene Funk and his brother of McClean Co., Ill. who are the forefathers of Funk Bros. Seed Co.
https://archive.org/stream/funkfarmsbirthpl00funk#page/n3/mode/2up
As I read through this old thread I find that some of you guys are at least partially correct, and some are WAY off base.
Just a bit more about the Funk Associates. Funk Bros. Seed Company had what were called "Associated Growers". These were (mostly) smaller seed companies that had contracts with Funk's to access parent stock and grow Funk products. The original company in their quest to expand could not cover the entire US and so they made these contracts with people like RobSeeCo, )Robinson Seed Company, even a producer in Canada and a number of others whose names I do not recall at the moment. Actually Wisconsin and a couple of counties in north western Ill were under contract with the Schissler Seed Company until about the time I was hired and the parent company bought back the contract for Wisconsin.
These Associates banded together about the time that CIBA GEIGY got into the act and they pulled out of Funk Seeds to form Golden Harvest. That's a sketch of how THAT happened.
| |
|
Funk's seed corn
