TOPIC: Scouting

With just a little over a month to go before the digging starts it's time to get some serious scouting in for new sang spots. My son and I nailed a beatiful spot down with at least 60-70 plants and most of them were good sized 3 stem plants. I found a spot a couple hundred yards from this spot last year and saw many random plants scattered and figured there was another honey hole. They were all in a little bowl about 20x20 yards! Some of the berries were starting to swell, it won't be long!

Whoops the picture was to big.

Nice pictures.
Was walking in the woods the other day and didn't see any ginseng for the first couple of hours. I was giving up and turning for home and decided to walk back a differnt way. I crossed up a hill and found a little two pronger right at the foot of the hill. It was good to see just a little something, I thought. I continued up the hill and about half way up I started seeing ginseng everywhere. It was unreal how many plants were growing on this one little hillside. I walked to the top and back down and counted over 300 plants, all three and four prongers.
Went back in the woods a little further from the hill and found patches of 10, 20 and even 30 plants. I was amazed. Cant wait for the season to start.

My friend that owns the woods said I could dig up as much as I wanted.
Alittle note, though. Some of the plants were already turning toward yellow. Not all but a few.

Also, this isn't the only location I've scouted. It is by far the best one I've seen, but I've seen lots and lots of ginseng growing. I'm thinking it'll probably be a good year.

Today is July 13, 2009. Was scouting again this morning and I thought I'd post a pic of the kind of plants I've been finding. This is a big four pronger. The stem on this plant was as big around as a pencil. The root must be huge.
sorry for the picture quality, I took it with my cell phone.

I see some stripped maple growing in your pic. If that gets hold in the area, your future ginseng hunting there may be in jeopardy. With that many sprouts in a few inches, I'll bet there are some bigger trees sending out a lot of seeds. That stuff can get so thick and hinder other plants. JMHO.

hey dieselrider what exactly is a striped maple. I don't believe we have them down here in Ky. I have never heard of them before. thats sad to say since i am a forest ranger and know the majority of trees. And why does it make it bad for seng. Do they just take up the forest floor and smother everything out or what.

Here is a link to a page from Virginia Tech about Striped Maple. I also see I spelled it wrong before. http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=4 It doesn't appear you have a problem with it down there but, it is considered an invasive species up here. They just grow quick and produce so many seeds they do tend to take over an area and shade an area very densely. Then just spread like crazy. Even sang needs some light to grow. I had them growing on my property and was amazed at how many there were in a small area. I cut and pulled hundreds of them and really opened up a area once they were \"mostly\" down. There are alot of sugar maple sprouts in the same spot that now should have the light to grow. I say they are mostly gone because if you walk that area and look close, you can still find the little sprouts growing. They are easy to pull up when they are small, but once they are bigger.... look out. Also the ones I cut down, several were loaded with seed so, I will see if I got them down before the seed was viable or not. It is early and I see I am rambling. Must need coffee. Take care.

This was logged a few years ago Diesel, probably not much I can do, it's not my property.The good thing is that this one pic was right in a small opening and they just did a TSI and did not open up the canopy too much.

I sure didnt know about this diesel,intersting.........

Billy.