TOPIC: Modified wild sim method?

Hey yall,

I'm interested in the approach that Hillhopper uses for growing. If I'm understanding it correctly, its wild simulated with fungicide applied. Is this right? Anyone have any experiences to share with this method?

Boon

Welcome to this forum, Boonerman!

Hill can jump in here for a better set of details. i think a better understanding of the \"grades\" of 'sang is in order here.

There are four grades... 1st 3 are grown in the woods
--Wild [most valuable in the market].
--Wild Simulated [has no fungisides or herbicides used in growing]
--Woods Grown [approach uses the above fungicides/herbicides] however in the woods and generally some modern Ag equipment is needed
--Shade Grown [has erected shade platforms to get the needed shade, and uses modern Ag equipment + both herbicides/fungicides]

Good luck, and keep us posted on things!

I asked Hillhopper on a separate thread about his plants and I believe he said they looked wild/wild sim. Please correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is the grading system is based on how the roots look, not how they are priduced. The two are usually correlated, but maybe not always. Correct?

It vary's so much it is hard to say. It depends so much on soil quality and soil make up. Plant wild simulated style in extremely rich dark loamy sandy soil and its going to look like woods grown most likely with longer pencil roots. Plant woods cultivated in harder soil density where the root struggles and it's going to look more like Wild Simulated. So it's possible that woods grown roots can bring more $$ than wild simulated in some cases. It all comes down to the root appearance and what experienced buyers are willing to pay.
Ain't that confusing.
However, Whitjr's example above is a good guideline as to how it works out most of the time.
Latt

Would have answered you sooner, however am just getting back to town after a week's travels.

That grading system in use by the buyers of our fav herb is very subjective, as you mentioned.

I may be sounding a gong here, but want to write the following;

Another factor is what buyers do with their roots once they have finished buying them. I have heard of buyers that keep their piles of purchased roots in graded piles in optimal storage conditions until shipment. Once they are ready to ship, will mix piles to \"flush\" out the weight of a given shipment, or for a given order.

This is dilemma for we who are selling. For this example, think of this:

I represent my product as being grown a certain way, under certain circumstances, and certain conditions -say woods grown- and thus sold as that with the price paid to me reflecting all that.

And, IMHO, is also a congruent ethical problem on the buyer side. Following my example: If a buyer has a customer in china that wants only wild root, and a certain amount is promised by the local buyer I sold to, then the local buyer mixes wild-looking woods-grown roots in it and sells it as wild. The buyer is going to get a price paid for wild. As you can see, the roots going over to china are not all wild.

In following this logic, not only is efficacy of the root possibily affected, the integrity of the entire transaction after I sold my root is changed to a degraded state. It seems criminal to do this, to me.

Not to mention that my root that I have carefully grown under my circumstances becomes involved in this. All from a buyer's lack of integrity. In this example, I was paid for woods-grown roots, however are being sold and shipped internationally as wild. Big, huge inconsistantcy.

Oh, well, will get off my point now.