The twelfth annual Ag Hall of Fame Dinner will honor Dave Wilson Nursery as Legends of Agriculture during Deep Roots…Celebrating a Legacy. 

The Ag Hall of Fame Dinner will be held Thursday, November 12th at the Assyrian American Civic Club of Turlock. Established in 1938, Dave Wilson Nursery has grown to become one of the largest growers of deciduous fruit, nut and shade trees in California for both commercial orchards and home gardens. Prior to this Dave Wilson worked at Kirkman Nursery, a prominent tree nursery in the early 20th Century, for about 14 years providing an opportunity for him to grow Junebudded orchard trees on leased ground with John Moffet through a four year partnership. Subsequently, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Dave and his wife Isabel operated Empire Nursery, a garden center located east of Modesto, with Isabel’s sister and her husband, Pearle and Walter Mann. The nursery became Dave Wilson Nursery when John Wynne, Dave’s son-in-law, joined the company in 1950 after serving five years in the U. S. Coast Guard during WWII and graduation with a degree in business administration from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, in 1949.

Dave and John grew commercial orchard trees in a partnership until the company was incorporated in 1957. John became President of the nursery in 1962 and purchased the present site of the nursery’s headquarters, along the Tuolumne River east of Hickman in 1967. The nursery introduced the first tree fruit varieties developed by Floyd Zaiger in 1966 and are the primary propagator and exclusive licensor of Zaiger varieties with annual sales of over a million trees of patented varieties and rootstocks.

The nursery established a sales & distribution facility in Hughson (1966) which was relocated to the nursery’s growing grounds in Hickman (1986). Additionally, an office, test orchard and sales yard was established in Selma, California (1979) then relocated to Reedley in 1995.

In 1972, Dave Wilson Nursery branched out to start growing trees for the home garden wholesale market. Robert Woolley, in 1980, joined the nursery initially to help in the development of a unique, regionalized retail mail order catalog for home gardeners. After the mail order catalog was discontinued Robert became a Field Representative to commercial orchardists. In the early 1980s, the Hughson office and sales yard was consolidated to Hickman, the growing grounds site. Robert and his wife Jane purchased the nursery in 1989 after John Wynne passed away (1988).

In order to accommodate growth in tree sales as well as to increase time in crop rotation cycles the nursery purchased the 640-acre Red Rock Ranch in Hickman (1997) and added 240-acres adjacent to the nursery headquarters in 2004. The nursery currently employs over a hundred people year round and approximately three hundred with peak seasonal employment. Dave Wilson Nursery grows over 3 million trees for both the commercial orchard and home garden, farms approximately 1,500 acres and maintains an office, sales yard and test orchard in Reedley.

The Ag Hall of Fame event includes a gourmet dinner and live, silent and wine auction. All proceeds benefit the fund to construct the National Ag Science Center in Modesto.  The National Ag Science Center project is an interactive science and technology museum, located on the Modesto Junior College West Campus, dedicated to the education and promotion of agriculture and science. 

Tickets and tables of ten are available — $125 per person and $1,250 per table.  Reservations and sponsorship information may be obtained by calling 209.521.2902
or by email at info@agsciencecenter.org.