News

It all starts with a fertiliser spreader

2026-03-31T15:25:47Z

Spring is arriving. This is the time that dairy farmers start the grassland season by fertilising their grassland. Actially also springtime at Lely began with a fertiliser spreader. The company started in 1948, but all invented machines were licensed...(read more)

Living in a Lely

2026-02-24T09:43:05Z

Not so many people know that Lely has been building houses for more than 20 years. Lely was one of the first who started to build houses in a factory as prefab. They were build in 2 days at the site including all plumbing, doors etc. It started in 19...(read more)

no skiing without a Lely

2025-12-23T16:24:21Z

Winter season has arrived. Everybody who has ever been skiing that slopes need to be prepared for a smooth piste. This is done by ‘’Pistenbully’s’’, a bulldozer like snowpusher with carterpillar tracks. In German this ty...(read more)

Development history of Discovery (link to article in Dutch)

2025-11-27T09:04:27Z

https://www.melkveebedrijf.nl/stalinrichting/stalcomponenten/stalhygiene/van-idee-tot-innovatie-zo-veranderde-de-discovery-de-koeienstal-81590/?utm_campaign=482025&utm_source=Melkveebedrijf&utm_medium=email Attached is a picture of the first...(read more)

Exos 1.0 from the sixties

2025-09-18T13:40:39Z

The present Exos is already quite known. A well working autonomous machine for mowing and loading fresh grass and for feeding it succesively to the animals in the barn. Not many people know that in the late sixties Lely developed a predecessor of the...(read more)

Lely's milking journey - start

2025-09-04T08:28:24Z

This summer 33 years ago (1992), the Astronaut prototype milked its first cow. But actially Lely's milking journey started in 1985. Several wild thoughts how to milk automatically were written down in patents. An example of such from 1985 is add...(read more)

Lely's most iconic design

2025-08-29T07:27:59Z

May be the Acrobat 2x2 rake is Lely's most iconic design ever. This rake was designed (and patented of course) in 1955 as a further development of the hay rake of 1948. This machine can be found all over the world and many manufacturers produced it u...(read more)

Combine

2025-08-27T09:13:47Z

found this picture of a nicely restored Lely Victory combine harvester on Facebook, showed on a local show in England. Lely manufactured combine harvesters from the mid 60 to 1980. First in Germany at the Dechentreiter factory, later in England. Typi...(read more)

Acrobat

2025-08-26T12:40:00Z

Last month I have been visiting the HTM festival in Panningen (NL). Came across this model of an old Lely Acrobat rake. . Quiz: Do you know when this type of the Acrobat rake was developed?(read more)

Welcome to the Lely History Group!

2025-08-26T12:38:21Z

This space is all about looking back at where we’ve come from — the milestones, inventions, stories, and people that shaped Lely into what it is today. From our very first machines to the groundbreaking innovations that changed farming fo...(read more)