HOW ROHNERT DEVELOPED THE SEED FARM
Copied from John H. DeClerq, A History Of Rohnert Park.
"The 1920's were boom times. Businesses were expanding. In 1929 the Rancho was sold to one such successful businessman. Waldo Emerson Rohnert was a native of Detroit, Michigan (born in 1869) and an honors graduate from Michigan State Agricultural College (in 1889). He came to California and became established with the C.C. Morse Company, the largest seed growing firm in the west. In 1893, Rohnert started his own seed growing business in Hollister, where he also planted one of the largest prune orchards in the west.He then expanded into the San Joaquin Valley near Firebaugh and in 1929, north to Cotati. His first order of business on his Sonoma County lands was to minimize the periodic flooding of the fields. His crude drainage system was sufficient-a two-foot mound down the middle of the field with two-foot ditches on each side.
Then he concentrated on enriching the soils. Waldo Emerson Rohnert barely saw his seed farm produce. In 1933, at the age of 64, he passed away, leaving a wife, Edna, and children Fred and Dorothy heir to the Rancho. It was Fred Rohnert, a graduate of Stanford Law School, who actually took over the Company. Fred Rohnert farmed the Rancho, some as hay fields, some as seed farm, from his office in Hollister. The seed farm and the wholesaling of vegetable seeds turned into a successful venture that lasted many years. The seed farm was a major horticultural asset to the County, some say second only to the gardens of Luther Burbank in Santa Rosa."
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