By STEVE BINDER
Illinois Correspondent

ST. FRANCISVILLE, Ill. — What started out as a dream regarding small seeds has grown into a multimillion-dollar hybrid corn company featuring GIANTS.
Clarence Akin started the Akin Seed Co. not long after his 1936 graduation from the University of Illinois with an emphasis on studying hybrid seed corn. Akin maintained a relationship with Funk G Hybrids for nearly 40 years before joining six other associate growers to found Golden Harvest.

It wasn’t long after, in 1979, that Akin split from Golden Harvest and formed AgriGold Hybrids, an independent seed company that now ranks as one of the largest in the United States.

“AgriGold has experienced tremendous growth,” said Phil McCutchan, AgriGold’s marketing manager. “We have not only increased our market share in our traditional area, we are also expanding our geography into the mid-South, Kansas and Nebraska.”

Today, AgriGold is the supplier to farmers in more than 400 counties in 13 states, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, Nebraska and Mississippi.
AgriGold now employs about 170 people. The company continues a trend first started by Akin nearly 40 years ago: Traveling to places far beyond U.S. borders to expand its research into hybrids.

Akin made annual winter treks to Moloka’i, Hawaii, to breed new hybrids, and the company today makes good use of winter nurseries in Puerto Rico, Chile and Argentina.

Research develops more than 100,000 unique hybrids each year, including five the company introduced as GIANTS. The genetics behind the new hybrids have produced, on average, six bushels per acre of corn more than other competitors, McCutchan said.

“The GIANTS have really showcased our development of top-yielding hybrids and our customers are seeing the benefits. These products not only provide yield, they also have the agronomics and traits that growers are demanding,” he said.

The business maintains a total of 13 distinct breeding programs that use germplasms from four different continents, and claims to be the industry leader in Di-Haploid breeding.

For more information about the company and its products, contact it at 800-262-7333 or go to www.agrigold.com online. AgriGold is headquartered at 5381 Akin Road, St. Francisville, IL 62460, in southeastern Illinois.