Flory Industries

General information

The Flory family moved to Salida from Whittier, California to the present ranch location and built their barn in 1909. The home was built in 1910; and the manufacturing facility is still presently at the same location.

During the late 1920's and early 1930's, the Flory's had a 100 cow grade "B" dairy. We were the first family to have milking machines in this country as far as is known. We were also the first to have a farm tractor in our area and the first to convert from steel tractor wheels to rubber tires (thanks in part to Harvey Firestone).

The dairy operation eventually expanded into custom grain and bean harvesting that grew to 15 harvesters. Howard Flory designed and built the 2 bean harvesters for use in their harvesting business, which lasted from 1935 to 1974, a total of 30 harvest seasons.

In 1961, the first Flory pick-up harvester was built, it was a small 3-point mounted, tractor-powered harvester that was primarily used in almonds.

As the industry grew, so did Flory, with production of a self-propelled harvester with a 4 foot pick-up width. As the speed and cleaning efficiency continued to improve in harvesters, there was need for faster, more efficient sweepers. Flory met that need in 1972 with a self-propelled heavy-duty sweeper, which featured a hydrostatic transmission, large diameter five-bar sweeper reel, and engine crankshaft-mounted blower fan. Sweepers have continued to improve over the years with more power, larger blower fans, and simplicity of design to the current sweepers with diesel engines.

Flory Industries is considered the leader in the field of nut-harvesting equipment, with sales worldwide for harvesting almonds, cashews, chestnuts, figs, hazelnuts, macadamia, pecans, tung nut and walnuts.

Flory Industries manufacturing facilities and offices are located on the original property purchased in 1909 at 4737 Toomes Road in Salida, California. We have been repairing and building farm machinery since 1936, and now concentrate on building nut-harvesting equipment, flail mowers, vineyard equipment, as well as contract metal fabrication.