Our History

KGS was started in 1963 by James Walter “Pat” Patrick. Pat (as everyone called him) father’s name was Kelly Patrick. Since Patrick was Irish, Kelly Green is a color and the four leaf clover is the lucky one, a name and a logo were born.

It started as a sorghum forage company producing hybrid seed under irrigated conditions and selling to different dealers in the Texas and New Mexico area. Pat and his growers were successful in production and shortly thereafter Pat grew the business to start producing for 3rd parties and packaging in their sacks.

Pat hired Jerry Monk on September 13, 1971 to help in retail sales and seed conditioning. On October 1, 1973 Pat became sick while working in the new plant and went to the hospital that night and surgery the next day to remove some stomach ulcers. There were surgery complications and November 1, 1973, Pat passed away at age 51.

At that time, Jerry was given the responsibility to manage and operate the business. Jerry always believed that in “Where there is a will—There is a way.” Through this extremely difficult time the team completed harvest and started conditioning seed, and the business moved forward. Thankfully, Jerry was blessed with many mentors during the next few years that gave advice and guidance on how to operate the business.

Following 13 years of working at KGS, Jerry Monk was able to buy into the company in 1984. They expanded into grain sorghum production in the mid 80’s building a germplasm bank to service the needs of its customers. Shortly thereafter, KGS started accessing germplasm from Warner Seeds in Hereford, Texas to help service the area expansion needs. KGS continued its growth in the Southwest US, Southeast US, and Mexico. Finally, KGS became a producer of all cereal grain seeds during the 80’s to supplement the off season business.

In 1999, the opportunity to acquire Warner Seeds, both its robust germplasm bank as well as its facilities, came available. Jerry took that opportunity. At the time, the Warner brand was larger, especially in regard to the grain sorghum acres, so the KGS brand was consolidated in the late 2000s. Almost 20 years later, the opportunity arose to bring back Kelly Green Seeds as the premier branded label of Warner Seeds, Inc.