ALBION -- At Johnny's Selected Seeds research farm on Monday, blue skies were piled high with big, light-and-dark clouds that sailed over the vegetable and flower trials established on 30 acres of gently rolling farmland.

"They're like the dramatic clouds in those Dutch paintings," said Johnny's chairman and founder Robert "Rob" L. Johnston Jr. of the early June skyscape, as swallows swooped and twittered overhead.

"See that hillside over there -- it's all tomatoes. The peppers are under row covers; the pumpkins and squash in the greenhouse," he said, gesturing past barns and parked tractors to a productive, colorful patchwork quilt of tilled and planted fields.

A veteran and innovative seedsman, who also manages the research arm of the company, Johnston, 58, enjoys watching climatic changes, a metaphor that extends to the weather eye he has kept on the successful seed company, currently celebrating its 35th year.

Since launching the business in 1973, he has seen its annual gross sales grow dramatically, through good economic times and bad, from $7,000 to its current $17 million today, he said. "Home gardening is up 33 percent this year," he said, a boom being experienced by seed companies nationwide.

But to him, it's not all about weather and crops and seed sales.

"I like the trend that people want more local (produce). It is making the world a bigger place again. ... My personal vision is to help people feed each other," he said, of the seemingly simplistic entrepreneurial vision that has profoundly sustained the company over the years.

Dressed in a blue-plaid flannel shirt, khaki work pants that sported an iron-on patch and wearing a Johnny's cap, that day, he looked like any other worker out in the field.

But on Thursday, Johnston will don his trusty tweed jacket and best pair of trousers and head to Massachusetts, to receive the prestigious Jackson Dawson Memorial Award at an honorary medals gala dinner, to be held from 6 to 9 p.m., at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in Wellesley. Jackson Thornton Dawson was a 19th-century horticulturist, the first superintendent and plant propagator of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston.

Proceeds from the gala dinner go to "benefit excellence in horticulture through internships with the horticultural society" founded in 1829, whose Web site can be found at masshort.org, according to their news release. "It's a black tie affair. I don't even own a suit. ... I'm going to wear a bow tie. I thought that should make me look official," he said.

Although he could well afford a new suit, he just didn't take the time to look for one, he said. And, his perennial point of view does not let him put much stock in material things, like cars and houses and clothes.

"I've never been motivated by money. My (business) decisions have been based on what it will do for our customers -- on service. I have everything I want," he said.

Johnston is being recognized by the horticultural society primarily for his "plant-breeding programs," and for "breaking new ground in the seed business," a release from the society said. He is also being honored for Johnny's "no-nonsense catalog," and its "rich diversity (that) drew a broad range of gardeners, from beginners and veteran, to fresh market growers looking for high quality, new items," the release said.

"Mostly they give the award for ornamentals. This might be the first one for vegetables," he said.

Johnston was referring to the vegetables he has painstakingly developed over the years, varieties that have received the distinguished All-American Selections award for plant quality, innovation and excellence. They are: "Carmen" sweet red pepper, "Bon Bon," a buttercup squash,"Sunshine," a red-orange buttercup squash, "Bright Lights," a multicolored Swiss chard and "Baby Bear," a kid-sized pumpkin with a handy, long stem. Another Johnny's AAS winner was "Diva'," a salad cucumber developed by Johnston's wife, Janika Eckert, who also co-authored "Carmen."

"I'm pleased," he said, of the new award. "This is cool. They (Massachusetts Horticultural Society) will be recognizing me for the thing my ego is most attached to," he said, of plant breeding, which he called "a big test in delayed gratification, a very disciplined and mostly tedious affair."

A plant breeder typically embarks on trials that may take 10 years, he said.

"It's a lot of work," he said. He and his research staff develop a number of varieties at once, so that "regularly, there are things coming to fruition," he said.

Being a plant breeder is a lonely vocation, he noted.

"It's truly arcane to most people. Even my friends lose interest when I talk about it. When I was first winning (AAS) awards ... nobody called. There was no feedback.

"What feeds me, is that maybe I have made a small contribution, a vegetable that is better for cooking, or a variety that is helping someone earn a better living," he said.

Plant breeding is an important arm of the seed company, which has its headquarters in Winslow. In the past two years, he has helped to expand the research farm's tomato breeding program.

"I'd like to develop a tomato with early blight resistance," he said.

In 2006, Johnston began the sale of the company to his employees, a transfer of ownership that will take about nine years to complete. "If we continue on schedule, the process should finalize in 2015," he said.

He does not know what the future will hold for him, personally, but he appeared unconcerned. He is glad that his efforts have in some way helped others, he said, and he is grateful for the employees who have made the company what it is today.

"Everybody at Johnny's who puts effort into the end result is delivering something excellent. The research is just a flashy example, as part of that," he said.

Lynn Ascrizzi -- 621-5731

lascrizzi@centralmaine.com