Lemke Seed Farms was established in 1936. Louis Lemke was attending the farm short course program in Madison and learned about the new discovery of hybrid seed corn. He came home and planted ½ acre of seed corn that first summer. He harvested 7 bushels of seed which he sold to three neighbors. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Louis raised and sold Wisconsin Certified hybrid seed corn and seed oats.
Louis’s son Ralph joined the family business in 1960. In 1967 single cross seed corn was introduced. In 1970 the decision was made to stop handling seed oat and concentrate on the seed corn business. We started hiring full time sales people and started developing our dealer network during this time. The business continued to grow in the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1990s we started offering soybean seed. This is also the time that Ralph’s sons Patrick and Rick joined the business.
During the 1990s the introduction of genetically modified crops changed the landscape of the seed industry. Lemke Seed worked very hard to make sure our customers had access to the leading technologies, while at the same time always researching these new technologies to make sure they made sense for the Wisconsin farmer.
Lemke Seed currently has a complete lineup of both technology corn and conventional corn from 85 day to 110 day maturities. We continue to research and bring forward products that bring the most value to our customers. This philosophy has stayed the same for our 70 plus years in business.