Already in 1913, Johannes Sembdner presented his seed drill and weeding machine to HM King Ludwig III of Bavaria at the agricultural fair at Munich's Oktoberfest.

The Johannes Sembdner company was founded on 10 February 1914 in Munich and quickly developed to become the sought-after specialist for gardening supplies.

The shop at the Gärtnerplatz in Munich had everything to offer that a gardener required for his daily needs: From budding knife to greenhouse – everything from one source. Besides his own developments, Johannes Sembdner also stocked all other well-established gardening products. In 1929, a general catalogue with 210 pages came onto the market and one original copy is still available today.

He relocated his company to Germering (near Munich) in 1938; here he began his further development of vegetable planting machines: The first GSD vegetable seed drill for multi-row vegetable seeding as well as the hand-pushed single-row HS manual seed drill for seed drilling and dibbling.

Always in line with the motto:
„I ask you always to observe this in comparison with cheaper offers because only the best tool has the lowest running costs!“

Both machines are still produced today, with new design though, and sold world-wide.

In addition to selling his own innovative products, Johannes Sembdner

was also distribution partner for Bungartz rotary cultivators covering the territories of Bavaria, Vorarlberg, Tyrol, Salzburg, Carinthia and Styria.

In the mid-fifties, he developed the first landscape seeder; it is even today still considered to be the Rolls-Royce of landscape seeders.

The company grew permanently, the profession of landscape gardeners gained increasing recognition and the first self-propelled machines were built. From 1958 with ILO engines and forward gear, later on with forward- and reverse gears and with Sachs engines, then with Briggs & Stratton engines. Currently Honda engines are exclusively installed.

Son-in-law Dr Kurt Thumann took over the company after Johannes Sembdner had died and renamed it as SEMBDNER Maschinenbau GmbH in 1978.

Besides vegetable seed drills and landscape seeders, today’s portfolio includes further equipment for professional gardeners as far as tennis court rollers.

In 2012, SEMBDNER Maschinenbau GmbH moved to Liebigstr. 16 in Fürstenfeldbruck.

Here in this plant, machines are built in a similarly practice-oriented fashion just as it was at the time of Johannes Sembdner: Rugged and durable. A „service life“ of more than 40 years is no exception. In some cases there are replacements for wear parts even for older landscape seeders since machines in comparable design have already been manufactured for so many years.