Grown Rogue’s cultivation story begins in Southern Oregon, but it no longer ends there. Today, the company’s Oregon roots provide the foundation for a New Jersey operation that is developing its own identity around the state, its cannabis market, and the people who call it home.
Obie and Sarah Strickler, both natives of Oregon’s Rogue Valley, entered the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program in 2006. Their first cultivation site was a south-facing mountain slope selected for its sun exposure and gravity-fed spring water. They began with fifteen holes dug by hand. According to the company, the Stricklers began growing not with a business plan, but with a desire for better cannabis. In the early 2000s, reliable quality could be difficult to find, even in a region with generations of cultivation history. Results varied from batch to batch, and the Stricklers wanted greater control over the inputs, processes, and finished flower.
Over the years, Sarah Strickler maintained a small garage grow to preserve genetics that Grown Rogue considers foundational to its portfolio. Those genetics eventually became part of the company’s commercial cultivation program when Grown Rogue was formally established in 2016, following Oregon’s transition to a regulated adult-use market.
That history still matters. But bringing an Oregon cultivation philosophy to New Jersey was never about simply recreating Oregon.
Oregon Roots, New Jersey Growth
Terroir is a term borrowed from wine to describe the environmental characteristics that influence a crop: soil, water, elevation, climate, and the surrounding landscape. Southern Oregon has a terroir all its own, shaped by warm summer days, cool nights, abundant sunlight, and generations of outdoor cultivation.
New Jersey has its own environment, agricultural history, and cannabis culture.
Rather than attempting to duplicate the Rogue Valley, Grown Rogue has focused on bringing the things that can travel—genetics, cultivation knowledge, and an emphasis on quality—while allowing its New Jersey operation to develop within its own environment.
Two pieces of the Oregon legacy are particularly important. The first is genetic material. The strain library Sarah Strickler helped preserve over the company’s early years continues to influence Grown Rogue’s flower portfolio. The second is practice: nearly two decades of accumulated knowledge about how plants are fed, trained, harvested, dried, and cured. Grown Rogue describes itself as a flower-forward company, with an emphasis on terpene-driven profiles, flavor, aroma, and potency.
In New Jersey, those principles serve as a starting point rather than a finished formula. The goal is not to make Oregon flower in New Jersey. It is to grow Grown Rogue flower for New Jersey.
Growing in Paulsboro
Grown Rogue’s New Jersey cultivation operation, ABCO Garden State, is based in Paulsboro, a borough on the Delaware River in Gloucester County. The facility represents an important evolution for the company: cultivation knowledge and genetics developed through its Oregon history are now being put to work locally by a team growing for New Jersey’s cannabis market.
The first Grown Rogue harvest from the Paulsboro facility reached New Jersey dispensaries in December 2024. Since then, the operation has continued to grow, with a second phase of construction underway in 2026 to expand cultivation space within the facility.
The setting is distinctly New Jersey. Rather than a Southern Oregon mountainside, the Paulsboro facility sits within a working industrial community along the Delaware River. It is a very different setting for cultivation, and one that reflects the realities of New Jersey’s regulated cannabis market.
In Paulsboro, Grown Rogue’s Oregon experience is being adapted to a new environment, with its cultivation knowledge, preserved genetics, and flower-first approach brought to bear on the needs of New Jersey consumers.
The flower is cultivated locally, and as the facility expands, so does Grown Rogue’s presence in the state’s cannabis market.
As New Jersey’s regulated cannabis market continues to mature, so does the community surrounding it. Consumers are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about cultivars, terpene profiles, cultivation methods, and the differences between products grown across the state.
Grown Rogue has approached that market by putting flower at the center of its presence while also building relationships with dispensaries, budtenders, consumers, events, and cannabis communities throughout the state. The company participates in local activations and partnerships, putting its New Jersey operation in conversation with the people who make up the state’s cannabis scene.
Grown Rogue may have been born in Oregon, but its presence in New Jersey is shaped by the people growing, marketing, selling, and experiencing the brand there. Its story in the state is increasingly about what it is building locally.
Oregon gave the company its foundation. New Jersey is giving that foundation a new place to grow.
A Different Kind of Harvest Season
That distinction becomes especially apparent during the first weekend of October.
Submersion Festival takes place October 2–3 at Paradise Lakes Campground in Hammonton, New Jersey, with an early-entry party on October 1. The three-day event brings bass music to the edge of the Pine Barrens for attendees 21 and over, with Grown Rogue sponsoring the High Times Hub on site.
For Grown Rogue, the timing creates an interesting connection between its two homes. In Southern Oregon, October is traditionally synonymous with Croptober. Outdoor cultivation follows the seasons, and the first weeks of the month mark the culmination of a year spent growing beneath the Oregon sun.
In New Jersey, indoor cultivation operates on a different rhythm. Plants are cultivated throughout the year, allowing flower to reach consumers on a rolling basis rather than according to a single annual harvest.
The festival’s location adds another distinctly New Jersey element. Hammonton is known for its agricultural history and blueberry production, connecting the event to a state with a long tradition of growing and farming even as its cannabis industry develops its own place within that landscape.
So while October means harvest in the Rogue Valley, in New Jersey it becomes an opportunity to bring together the people and culture surrounding a cannabis industry that operates on a very different calendar.
For Grown Rogue, that creates a natural meeting point between the company’s Oregon history and its presence in New Jersey.
From Rogue Valley Roots to New Jersey Growth
Grown Rogue’s Oregon history will always be part of the company’s identity. It is where the Stricklers learned to grow, where the company’s genetics were developed, and where its cultivation philosophy took shape.
But those roots don’t have to dictate where the company grows next.
In New Jersey, Grown Rogue is building an operation that reflects the state around it. The company’s cultivation knowledge and genetics are being put to work in a different growing environment, alongside New Jersey growers, dispensaries, consumers, and the communities surrounding them.
The result is not an attempt to recreate Oregon in New Jersey. It is a company with Oregon roots building a deeper presence in a new cannabis market, bringing nearly two decades of cultivation experience to a different growing environment while continuing to learn from the people around it.
The flower grown in Paulsboro may trace part of its genetic lineage back to Southern Oregon. But it is grown in New Jersey, by Grown Rogue’s local operation, for the people who live there.
Oregon is where Grown Rogue’s story began. New Jersey is where the company is growing its next chapter.
Photos courtesy of Grown Rogue
Sponsored Content Disclosure: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with Grown Rogue. Information about the Stricklers’ cultivation history, Grown Rogue’s founding and genetics program, its cultivation philosophy, the ABCO Garden State operation in Paulsboro, the timing of its New Jersey harvest and facility expansion, and the company’s activities and partnerships in New Jersey was provided by the sponsor or reflects the company’s public disclosures. Grown Rogue also provided information regarding its sponsorship of the High Times Hub at Submersion Festival.
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