The far north-central point of Minnesota has produced iconic brands like Marvin® Windows and Doors and Polaris Industries and a generation of talented hockey players. The region is also the second-largest producer of turf grass seed in the United States.
Williams, Minnesota is a small town near the United States/Canada border, located a few miles from the Lake of the Woods. From its facility in Williams, Northern Excellence Seed has served its member growers for more than two decades by providing high-quality conditioning, marketing, and packaging of turf grass seeds, non-GMO soybeans, and other grains.
Perennial ryegrass is the most commonly used turf grass seed in the United States. Northern Excellence Seed cleans the perennial ryegrass seed, packages it, and prepares it for shipment to customers around the world from a 150,000-square-foot facility. The nearby Lake of the Woods, with its wet, cooler nights and cold, snowy winters, creates ideal perennial ryegrass growing conditions.
The Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI) and Northern Excellence Seed have worked together for many years to identify new uses for the agricultural byproducts produced during the cleaning and conditioning of the different grass seeds. In that time, the company has grown and diversified to meet changing market conditions.
The company originated thanks to a generous offer from the Marvin® Windows and Doors family of Warroad, Minnesota. About two decades ago, the Marvin family told a group of area seed growers they were going to close their commercial-grade elevator and seed conditioning plant. They offered the farmers the seed cleaning equipment for free if they built the plant. About a dozen farmers from nearby Northern Farmers Cooperative Exchange in Williams stepped in to help finance construction of the facility and share resources, labor, vehicles, equipment, and management. Today Northern Excellence Seed is an LLC with more than 50 member growers. In 2004, the plant cleaned about five million pounds of grass seed. This year, or 20 years later, it handled almost 20 million pounds.
A large market for perennial ryegrass seed is golf courses in the southern United States. The native Bermuda grass on the courses turns brown and goes dormant in the winter. Over-seeding the rough, tee boxes and fairways with perennial ryegrass seed keeps the golf course looking green and healthy until the spring when the Bermuda grass starts to grow again. Northern Excellence Seed also contract produces seeds for grass at sports team stadiums and sod farms, as well as grass seed mixes at retail centers.
The grass seed market has changed dramatically over the company’s 20-year existence. In the early 2000s, growers in the area produced mostly Kentucky bluegrass and timothy seed for horse hay. The economic recession of 2008 created a three-year backlog of grass seed in the market, and prices dropped significantly as a result.
Today, growers produce perennial ryegrass seed due to changing consumer preferences and shifting production economies in the grass industry. The business also expanded and diversified its offerings. In 2016, Northern Excellence Seed added a third processing line dedicated to non-GMO food-grade soybeans and small grains. Those crops are sold to South Korea and Japan for sprout soybean, tofu and natto markets. The facility also cleans and packages timothy, reed canary grass, and cover crop seeds.
“The recession showed us that it wasn’t best to have one type of product and be a one trick pony,” says Brent Benike, Northern Excellence Seed’s general manager. “There were benefits to the perennial ryegrass switch from bluegrass. It is an earlier harvest compared to other commodities we produce. The U.S. market shifted to a preference for grasses that do not require as much water and nitrogen, plus we have a cost of production and quality advantage over the traditional growing region of Oregon.”
Benike says the operations at Northern Excellence Seed will continue to evolve. Demand for grass seed exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic but has leveled off since. There have also been changes to how seeds are cleaned and packaged for retail sales. Coating of seeds has become a practice in the industry that has cut into demand for seed. The economy continues to dictate the market, and the company will respond to customer preferences and evolve.
“We can and must be flexible,” Benike says. “The one thing for us is that we diversified into more grains and food-related products, and we can do more if we need to. That has been very important to be diversified.”
Cleaning and conditioning grass seed produces a fibrous remaining material called “screenings.” For many years, Northern Excellence Seed loaded the screenings and trucked them to a disposal site outside of town where they would be burned. This arrangement was not ideal.
“That created all kinds of risks with the [screenings] blowing all over and needing to put the smoldering piles out in the spring when the fire danger would be high. It was a really big hassle,” says Benike.
Several years ago, Northern Excellence Seed approached AURI for assistance finding alternative avenues for the screenings. The two partners explored several options, including using the material in biomass gasification as a form of electrical generation. For the past seven years, the company has sent its screenings to a wood processing plant in Cook, Minnesota that turns them into a thermal heating supplement pellet in the Iron Range area of northern Minnesota.
“This material is the lowest hanging fruit. There is no value to it whatsoever, so we are very receptive to finding alternative uses and ways for it to be utilized. This has been a good option so far to our problem, but the AURI team is always looking for new potential uses for our waste screenings,” Benike says. “I have always looked at AURI as the ligament that connects the bone and the muscle in the ag world here in Minnesota. The state of Minnesota should be proud of putting AURI together all those years ago. It is a model that other states should copy.”
Michael Sparby, AURI’s commercialization director, says that Northern Excellence Seed is an ideal partner for AURI. He says AURI has done BTU analysis for the company as well as valuation and assessment of the biomass product. AURI researchers have also conducted alternative crop testing at the company’s facilities.
“They are amazing partners,” Sparby says. “More importantly, that part of the state is an incredible success story. With the help of the University of Minnesota and the growers themselves, the region has transformed Minnesota into the second largest producer of perennial ryegrass in the nation. It is a testament to the hard work and innovation of everyone involved.”
“AURI is so connected throughout the state and just agriculture in general. They can always refer you to someone,” Benike says. “I tell people all the time that ‘You don’t have to go out and reinvent the wheel. Call AURI because chances are they have already invented the wheel, or they know someone who has.’ They have been a big part of our continued success.”
