50 Years and Still Growing
Dan Dahlkemper of Dahlkemper Architects and Contractors has utilized Ernst’s products for various projects, including Frontier Park in Erie County.
Ernst Conservation Seeds is known for its custom mixes of seeds for wildlife and pollinator habitats, beautification, erosion control, water absorption, and sustainable landscapes.
Ernst Conservation Seeds grows more than 400 diverse crops for conservation, restoration, beautification and energy. The company is also recognized nationally as the largest switchgrass seed producer east of the Mississippi.
Standing in a meadow surrounded by a sea of Penstemon digitalis, Calvin Ernst holds a plant in his hand, much like a professor ready to teach. “See, this is the beard and this is the tongue,” he explains, pinching the hardy, white native perennial to reveal the fuzzy hairs of the stamen. “That is why it’s known as beardtongue.” Ernst is a scholar of seeds, so to speak, most comfortable talking about his business, Ernst Conservation Seeds, while walking among his wildflower and switchgrass fields that line the roadsides just outside Meadville, Pennsylvania. The Crawford County native is happy to share his knowledge about his products, including his favorite, a New England aster, which, he says, is not only “beautiful in the fall” but also an excellent “pollinator for bees and butterflies.” The 73-year-old entrepreneur has weathered the ups and downs of the marketplace and Mother Nature and talks openly about planting and harvesting, and what he calls the “oddball” business of the seed industry — and how he got into it in the first place. “I never planned to be a seed farmer,” he says, cracking a smile. “But I liked the economics of seeds. I like to say that I’m in the business of turning sunshine and rain into money.” Today, with more than 8,000 acres onsite and 200 acres in Florida and contracts with growers as far away as North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland, the third-generation family owned business is one of western Pennsylvania’s most successful agribusinesses — growing more than 400 diverse crops for conservation, restoration, beautification, energy, pharmaceuticals and consumption. Ernst’s custom seed mixes can be found along highway interstates and landfills, and conservation areas near and far — from Frontier Park in Erie County and the national park system in Washington, D.C., to even the hallowed grounds of the Flight 93 National Memorial outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 12 < www.mbabizmag.com < August 2014
The company is also recognized nationally as the largest switchgrass seed producer east of the Mississippi and, in recent years, has become a pioneer in the production of switchgrass pellets for the burgeoning biomass market. “The business has really evolved from where it started,” says Ernst, the company’s founder and president. “Then again, I wouldn’t have stayed with it if it hadn’t.”
A Rich History
Fifty years ago, however, Ernst Conservation Seeds was just an idea waiting to be planted. “We didn’t actually recognize that we were going to be a seed company,” Ernst explains. “But growing things has always been sort of my goal in life. I liked to grow plants.” While studying ag biosciences at Penn State University, Ernst had been working in a greenhouse researching the erosion control plant crownvetch. When Calvin and his brother Luther learned that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) couldn’t find anyone interested in growing it, the brothers were up for the challenge. Ernst says they scraped up the seed money and convinced their father, the late Ted Ernst, to plant crownvetch on five acres of the family farm back in Meadville. Notes Ernst, “The fortunate thing was that it projected a profit, when basically it was really hard to get into the agriculture industry without having somebody give you a farm. Crownvetch was profitable enough that you could expand on the basis of the crop.” Luckily, Ernst’s interest in growing crownvetch paid off, and the family enterprise officially became known as Ernst Crownvetch Farms in 1964. According to Ernst, the timing couldn’t have been better. In the mid-to-late ‘60s, development of the interstate system brought with it