At Terning Seeds in Cokato, Minnesota, solar panels pivot to face the sun as the earth turns beneath them. Like the solar panels, Terning Seeds has pivoted with market opportunities, selling sweet corn seed to Green Giant, soybean seed to French growers, popcorn seed, and seed corn to farmers in Ukraine, as well as down the road.

“I try to outthink any problem that might arise,” said Terning Seeds President Dennis Terning. That desire to get ahead of the curve led him to investigate solar energy in 2008. At first, the payback didn’t quite “pass the smell test,” he said.

Fast forward five years, to 2013. Terning was still ahead of the curve, and the solar investment was paying dividends. Terning Seeds became a test case for energy companies, solar installers, and Minnesota’s public utility commission as they hammered out details of new solar incentive programs. Terning also invested in new technology that placed the panels on trackers that follow the sun, adjusting to the best angle to capture maximum sunlight.

As an early solar adopter, Terning Seeds qualified for a new 30 percent federal tax credit on the panels, as well as a 25 percent grant from the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 boosted REAP, which is now delivering grants to thousands of projects to cut energy costs across rural America.

Alongside the seed business, Dennis farms about 2,000 acres with his brother Dean Terning. Dennis joked that he’s always been more “progressive” than his brother when it comes to investing back in the family’s business. “But then the things that I can’t do, which is the maintenance and harvesting and planting, he’s really good at that,” Dennis said. “So we have different strengths.”

Dennis is paralyzed from the neck down, except for limited movement in his right arm. He suffered a stock car racing accident in 1993, a year after being named the IMCA Stock Car National Champion.

He brings that same drive to business as he did to the track. “As we bred through the years in the seed business, I was able to steer our ship from one side of the seed business over to the other side and back,” Dennis said. “We were fortunate being the size we were. We’re a small size compared to the multinationals. I don’t need no approval from any board or anything to make investments and do what I want to do. We’re an independent seed business.”

Terning Seed started in the 1970s with soybeans, wheat and oats, but Dennis wanted to get into seed corn. When his father agreed to his scheme, Dennis flew a Cessna 172 to Champaign, Illinois to pick up seed for his brother to plant the same day.

With corn, energy usage spikes when the corn needs to be dried after harvest. “Between the field corn drying and the cost of drying seed corn, it’s like 80 percent of our electric charges are in the month of September and the first week or two of October,” Terning said.

Today, the 96 kilowatts of solar panels produce between 158,000 and 168,000 kilowatt hours of energy per year. The business can bank the solar energy produced throughout the year to offset its high energy bills in the fall. It amounts to roughly $20,000 dollars in annual savings. 

“It’s a relief when you get a high bill, and you look at what the solar panels saved you,” Terning said. “You’re like, oh yeah, OK. I can dig that.”

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed by the 117th Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, is a piece of federal legislation that aims to reduce inflation by lowering the cost of prescription medications, investing in domestic energy production and promoting clean energy, among other objectives.