History

Gless Ranch Nursery was founded as Young’s Nursery in 1954 when Dowlin Young, along with his wife and business partner, Daisy, sought to grow citrus in a quarantine-free region of California and in the favorable desert climate of the Coachella Valley. Initially, the Young’s operated by providing labor in the budding and taping of trees in exchange for the first seedlings that were planted at the Nursery. As the business grew, so did the Young family, and Dowlin and Daisy raised their four daughters at their home on the nursery grounds.

The Young’s were ardent supporters of the Coachella Valley Agricultural Research Station and the University of California Citrus Experiment Station. Dowlin contributed to new developments and practices in citrus cultivation in California, most notably through the propagation and development of a cross between the Fortune and Fremont mandarins which became know as the Daisy Mandarin. At its peak, Young’s Nursery was producing more than 600,000 trees annually.

In 2015, the Young Family sold the nursery to Gless Ranch. Gless Ranch was founded in 1958 and is owned and operated by John and Janet Gless. Much like the Youngs, John and his wife had struck out on their own as newlyweds and as fate would have it, purchased the trees for their first citrus grove from the Young’s Nursery. It was the beginning of a great friendship and business relationship. Gless Ranch now farms in both Riverside and Kern counties, with crops that include oranges, grapefruit, lemons, mandarins, avocados, dates and figs. Young’s Nursery has supplied many of the needed trees to Gless Ranch’s farming operations for over half of a century. When the the Young family was ready to retire, Gless Ranch was ready to take Young’s Nursery into the next phase.