Almira firm purchases Wilhelm Seed

Long-time Rosalia seed company Wilhelm Seed was purchased Feb. 1 by McKay Seed Company of Almira. Barry Tee, former Wilhelm Seed owner, will continue to manage the office.

The Rosalia company has sold seed on the Palouse since 1947, when it was founded by Wilbur and Edgar Wilhelm, now both deceased.

By selling to the larger company, Tee said he can add an employee and have access to a broader selection of seed.

Tee has been running the business solo. As the company began selling more product, the work load became too much for one person.

McKay has tentative plans to send at least one trained employee to assist the Rosalia store now, Tee said.

The need for another employee was the kicker in making the choice to sell to McKay, Tee said.

The other incentive for the sale, Tee said, was more varieties of seed. McKay has more varieties than Wilhelm.

“As a small operation, I can only raise a couple of varieties,” Tee said. Wilhelm has traditionally contracted out with local Whitman County farmers for seed, which they then turn around and sell. Tee said the decision to stay with those growers rests in the hands of McKay, but he believes the company will stay with the long-time growers.

“There are so many wheat varieties out there; it gets hard for me to raise that many,” he said.

He, like McKay, noted the two companies have a history of trading seed. Merging the two was the obvious choice to answering Wilhelm’s staffing and seed access issues.

“I’ve had a good relationship with McKay for quite a few years. This will kind of streamline the process,” he said.

CEO of McKay Seed, Dan McKay, told the Gazette the two companies have a 15-year history of trading seed back and forth. To make the best seed available to the market at all times the two seed companies often supplied the other with the needed quantity of seed.

“We traded a lot of seed with Edgar. Some things we would produce and some things he would produce,” McKay said.

McKay, founded in 1982, owns offices in Almira and Moses Lake. The company works largely with farmers in Lincoln and Grant counties. With the addition of Wilhelm, they now hope to sell to farmers in north Whitman County and Spokane County

McKay sells, in any given fall, 12 to 15 varieties of wheat. They also sell other crop seeds like barley and alternative crops like yellow mustard or food barley.

McKay said the merger will give McKay a broader base for producing and transporting seed more efficiently. They will also be able to have more seed in stock.

“It will provide us with a larger base to manage our seed increases. Sometimes it is hard to do that,” McKay said.