The Stokes Fruit Farm was established in 1962 with the planting of two acres of black raspberries. It is currently owned by Dale and Jane Stokes and Mark and Stephanie Stokes. When the business structure was reorganized in 2002, the name was changed to Dale Stokes Raspberry Farm, LLC. The farm presently has forty-two acres of black raspberries, six acres of red, purple and yellow raspberries, and seven acres of strawberries. The total farm consists of 230 acres used not only for the above mentioned berries, but also to grow rye, wheat, soybeans and field corn. Crop rotation is essential in soil restoration, in order to provide optimal conditions for the highest quality of raspberries in the area. The farm is a fully integrated system starting with the development of our own plant stock, and ending with the sale and/or processing of our fruit crops. The physical structure of the farm is focused toward fruit production.
A unique feature of our farm is our plant breeding program. Dale Stokes and Harry Swartz, Ph.D., University of Maryland, have the most advanced raspberry breeding evaluation and micropropagation program in the nation. Plants are being specially bred and propagated to produce a specific berry for superior flavor for jam and other cooked berry products. (Breeding is the controlled method of the movement of the pollen from the anther of one plant to the stigma of another flower in order to systematically improve the genetics of the plants or achieve a new set of unique genetics. This is usually from two unrelated or not closely related plants of the same genus or species. Plant propagation focuses on increasing the number of plants of a species or of a specific cultivar. Propagation may be achieved sexually through the use of seeds or asexually by utilizing specialized vegetative structures such as roots or stems.)
The plant propagation program is also tandem with research being done at the Arthur James Cancer Hospital at the Ohio State University which has identified bioactives in the black raspberry that have been shown to reduce the incidence of esophageal, oral and colon cancer. Clinical trials with freeze-dried black raspberry powder containing these bioactives are now in progress.
