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Meet Our Specialist
Joey Bruns manages the Millborn Seeds North Sioux City Warehouse. He manages quality control and custom mixes. Wanted! Your Hunting Photos Send us your BEST hunting photos and we'll put them on our website so your friends can see them too! The best photo WINS a $100 Cabela's gift card. Cover Crop Tour Millborn's Cover Crop Specialist, Matt Fenske, presented during the McPherson County Cover Crop Tour Oct. 7. More than 50 producers attended the event.
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by Clint Johnson, Keeping the City of Pipestone's parks, cemeteries and boulevards lush and green is Scott Swanson's top priority. "We take pride in our workmanship. It's our goal to keep things looking good," says Scott, the Public Works Director for Pipestone, Minnesota. He adds that the task is more difficult than it may sound. "Many areas that we are responsible for keeping the grass green are areas that do not have access to water," he says. Before he began working with Millborn Seeds 10 years ago, Scott and his staff relied on sod and Mother Nature to work together - this was a risky solution that inevitably resulted in dead grass. "Sod needs to be constantly watered - we would have to haul water to the cemetery or the boulevards. If we were able to keep it alive until winter, I would lose a lot to winter kill. I was constantly re-sodding areas year after year," says Scott. When he decided to give grass seed a try, Scott called on Millborn Seeds for advice. I suggested that he use our erosion control blankets (Like the one pictured) in combination with seed. The blankets are biodegradable, protect the seed from washing away in a rain storm, and keep it moist while the seed is germinating. "The erosion control blankets keep the sun from burning things up. We get the grass growing back fast," Scott says. "We don't have to redo things." Pipestone residents soon realized the city was utilizing products that worked. Many landscapers and private land owners around the Pipestone area now buy their seed and erosion control products from Millborn Seeds as well.
Meet our North Sioux City Team Kelly Irwin (pictured here in our North Sioux City office) has worked with Millborn Seeds since 2001 managing our North Sioux City office. In 2005 he hired his stepson, Joey Bruns, to help him out. Providing Millborn customers with solutions is Kelly's number one priority. "We work with a lot of landscapers and large land owners. They count on our knowledge and quality products to achieve the results they want," says Kelly, who works with landowners helping them develop food plots or CRP land. "I spend a lot of time researching our products and the customer's growing conditions so I can make the best planting suggestions - you can't just throw seed out there and expect to achieve the results you want." An avid hunter, Kelly says he understands the value in developing food plots and wildlife habitat. "I'm addicted to studying native grasses," he says. "I most enjoy helping landowners improve their land and wildlife habitat."
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A Pheasant Paradise Crop Tour Today, Sam manages more than 1,200 acres of land in Central South Dakota. He provides habitat for pheasant, deer and Bobwhite quail populations. For Sam, conservation is more than a responsibility - it's his passion. In the off-season, when he wants to take a break from the fast-paced world of running a property development company in Sioux Falls, he jumps in his pickup truck and heads west to plant food plots. "I bought my own grass seeder. I used to hire a farmer to plant, but really, I love being in the tractor. I love doing the planting myself," says Sam, who depends on Millborn Seeds to supply him with the quality seed and custom mixes he needs. His food plot and efforts to increase wildlife habitat have not gone unnoticed. "The numbers have gone up substantially," says Sam, who enjoys taking his own sons, Seth and Jed, hunting whenever possible. Increasing pheasant populations is as simple as 1,2,3,4 To increase pheasant populations on your land, you need to provide them with the four habitats they need to flourish - nesting cover, winter cover, roosting cover and food cover. When planning where to plant each habitat, remember two things. First, during extreme winter weather, you don't want pheasants to have to go too far for food. Second, pheasants like edges - the area between two habitat types. If you're new at this, give me a call and I'll explain where you should plant each area. Nesting cover is usually found in cool season grasses and flowers. Flowers attract insects which attract nesting hens. The hens and their new chicks can feed on these insects through the summer and into the fall. Winter cover is often found in tall native grasses like Big Bluestem, Indiangrass, or Switchgrass. These tall, stiff grasses can stand up to the bitter South Dakota winters, providing shelter for pheasants. I will often custom-blend seed mixes for land owners based on their soil type and growing conditions. Since there are usually multiple soil types in a quarter of land, the custom mix will include a large variety of grasses. Diversity not only guarantees that each grass will flourish in its own niche, but also attracts a variety of insects and birds. Roosting cover is a mix of bushes and shrubs. Food cover is basically composed of unharvested grain crops, like sorghum, buckwheat, sunflowers and corn, left for the pheasants to feed on during the winter. Millborn can provide you with a custom-mix, or you can try one of our pre-mixed options like Rooster Trail Mix. Remember, if you have any questions, I enjoy nothing more than working with landowners to create wildlife habitat - give me a call, 605-697-6306.
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City of Pipestone Counts on Millborn
Each specialist on the Millborn team is highly trained with a vast product knowledge-base - we know our products, we take the time to understand our customer's goals, and we provide the information our customers need to achieve their goals. Our North Sioux City team is no different.