Seed Company Hits Pay Dirt With Hybrids : Agriculture: Petoseed Co. of Saticoy is a worldwide leader in a fertile field--developing vegetable varieties that will resist disease and drought.

Steve Cull, vice president for operations of Petoseed (pronounced “PEET-o-seed”) Co., almost went bonkers a few years ago when his daughter asked him how many vegetable seeds were stored in the firm’s large warehouses in Saticoy, east of Ventura.

“I did some figuring in my head,” he recalled. “When I got to a billion celery seeds and a trillion tomato seeds, I gave up. I told her she could assume we had an awful lot of seeds.”

Even if Cull had some way to compute how many broccoli, cabbage, cantaloupe, carrot, eggplant, cucumber, onion, pepper, watermelon and lettuce seeds Petoseed keeps in hundreds of storage containers weighing as much as a ton each, he probably wouldn’t disclose the figure.

Security is tight at Petoseed. Some of the seeds that the company markets worldwide sell for as much as $2,000 a pound--one-third the price of gold.

About 200 of Petoseed’s employees are based at the company’s headquarters in Saticoy, where, in addition to its administrative offices, Petoseed maintains greenhouses, a processing and packaging plant and a testing field where seedlings are pollinated and cross-pollinated in a never-ending search for stronger, improved varieties.

Founded in 1950, Petoseed is a subsidiary of Geo. J. Ball Inc., a privately held firm based in West Chicago, Ill. Neither Ball nor Petoseed are required to disclose their sales figures, but trade sources say the parent company is the dominant force in the U.S. vegetable and flower seed industry.

Among companies that breed and produce hybrid vegetable seeds, Petoseed is generally considered the leader in this country and among the top five in the world.

Petoseed’s president, Dietrich Schmidt, says the firm is in the midst of a worldwide expansion. “In the past year, we have reorganized and expanded our European operations, both internally and by acquiring other seed producers,” he said.

“Down the road, we’re planning on doing the same thing in Latin America and Asia. We’ve been active in those regions for years, but new opportunities are opening up. There’s increasing demand everywhere for hybrid seeds because they provide farmers with increased productivity and disease-resistant crops.”

If Petoseed’s name isn’t familiar, that’s because it sells only to farmers and other seed companies--including the W. Atlee Burpee Co., the nation’s largest marketer of seeds to home gardeners. Burpee, too, is owned by the Ball concern.

Petoseed’s parent, Geo. J. Ball, also owns Pan-American Seed Co., a flower seed concern that maintains a research center in Santa Paula. Together, Petoseed and Pan-American account for practically all the commercial seed production in Ventura County, according to the county Agricultural Department. The agency, like Petoseed and Ball, won’t give sales figures, but says the companies form an important part of the county’s agricultural picture.

Schmidt, 56, recently celebrated his 30th year with Petoseed. The German native’s family has been in the seed business for generations.

He travels a great deal, visiting Petoseed’s 500 employees at such far-flung locales as the research center in Woodland, Calif., and at breeding and distribution stations in Amsterdam, Germany, England, France, Mexico, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan and Indonesia.

In the past year Petoseed has established Peto Europe, which, from its headquarters in Amsterdam, oversees a network of distribution and test stations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Through acquisitions, Peto Europe has already established itself in Eastern Europe.

At last count, Petoseed was either marketing seeds or developing new plant varieties in 106 countries, Schmidt said.

About 95% of the company’s seeds--even those produced as far away as the Baltic coast, where a Petoseed station specializes in breeding cauliflower and broccoli--are processed and packaged in Saticoy.

Petoseed began as a tomato seed producer in Ventura in 1950. The owners, Howard B. Peto and Vic Hollar, split up in 1953.

Hollar kept a seed operation in Colorado, and Peto, who held a Ph.D. in agronomy, kept Petoseed, which by then was developing hybrid cantaloupes, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, pumpkins, tomatoes and watermelons. Petoseed moved to Saticoy in 1958, and the company was acquired by Ball in 1967.

One of Petoseed’s first marketing breakthroughs came during a crisis that hit San Diego-area farmers in the early 1970s. San Diego’s tomato crops were threatened with destruction by a disease called alternaria stem canker.

Petoseed had just come up with a hybrid, known as 6718, that was immune to the disease. The new variety was planted throughout San Diego County and was credited with saving the area’s tomato industry.

Petoseed, flushed with success, went on to develop a cornucopia of disease-resistant hybrids. The company now produces tomato varieties resistant to five major diseases and cucumber hybrids resistant to the four major viruses that plague the crop.

“Hybridization is painstaking work, but it’s fun,” said Schmidt. “It’s done almost entirely by hand, you know, moving pollen from plant to plant. It can take years to create a single new variety.

“But I can’t imagine doing something predictable, such as working in heavy industry, where everything is stamped out bang, bang, bang.”

The chief goals of hybridization, Schmidt said, are to produce plants that are resistant to disease and drought and to improve productivity and quality. “Along the way, we’re seeking to reduce farmers’ dependence on pesticides and other chemicals.”

As part of the food industry, which is traditionally resistant to recessionary cycles, Petoseed is doing well, Schmidt said. “Business is good. We’ve been expanding gradually for years. If sales are down in one part of the world, they’re usually up in another.”

Petoseed’s land holdings in Ventura County are definitely down, however. The company now owns only 200 acres around its headquarters on Lirio Avenue, compared to a peak of 2,000 acres. The downsizing is due mainly to increased development in the area, Schmidt said.

The international seed business is highly complex. “A squash that grows beautifully in California may not do well at all in the soil and climate of Australia or the Middle East. And people in those places may not like that kind of squash, anyway.”

Still, Schmidt said, some preferences are universal. “We’re working hard at developing seedless watermelons because people seem to like the idea. In five to eight years, I expect seedless varieties to dominate the world watermelon market.

“Seedless cucumbers may take a little longer being accepted--maybe 10 years. We’re marketing some varieties now. They taste sweeter than the ones with seeds. They’re quite popular in Europe.”

Through biotechnology, Petoseed can start with a single plant cell, ultimately producing thousands of plants. The process, perfected at the research center in Woodland, in Northern California, greatly speeds up the development of new hybrids.

Not surprisingly, Schmidt’s hobby is gardening. He’s constantly adding new varieties of vegetables and flowers to his home garden in Camarillo.

His tip to fellow hobbyists: “Don’t over-water. You’ll do fine if you just keep the soil damp. Install a drip system. That’s how we water most of our plants in Saticoy.”