agriculture subsidiary industry agriculture founded coon rapids iowa 1931 defunct december 31 2013 headquarters slater iowa united states key people roswell garst founder charley thomas founder products hybrid and varietal seeds parent syngenta website garst seed company garst seed company was a u.s. based subsidiary of syngenta that produced hybrid seeds for agriculture . in 1931 garst and thomas hi bred corn company was founded by roswell garst and charley thomas in coon rapids iowa and was instrumental in promoting the use of hybrid corn . 1 during the cold war garst formed a relationship with nikita khrushchev and assisted the ussr in modernizing its corn production . 1 in 1983 the company split up and garst seed company was formed . 1 in 1985 garst was acquired by imperial chemical industries s american subsidiary . 1 in 1993 ici sold off its north american assets and garst seed business became part of a new company called zeneca . 1 in 1996 garst became part of advanta group formed through the merger of zeneca seeds and vanderhave . 1 zeneca became part of astrazeneca and vanderhave was controlled by a dutch farmer owned co operative called cosun u.a. 2 in 2004 astrazeneca and cosun sold garst to syngenta . 1 3 in 2013 syngenta announced the retirement of the garst seed brand . operations ceased in 2014 and remaining garst hybrid corn seed products were rebranded to golden harvest . 4 notes edit a b c d e f g dinger ed . garst seed company inc. . retrieved 2010 12 29 . bijman j. 2001 . advanta worldwide challenges . agbioforum 4 1 34 39 . staff farm futures . may 12 2004 syngenta buys garst seed company karen mcmahon 2013 03 13 . syngenta s garst brand ends in 2014 . farm industry news . retrieved 2014 03 22 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title garst seed company & oldid 649156095 categories companies based in iowaamerican subsidiaries of foreign companies navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 27 february 2015 at 23 47 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view