TOPIC: Ohio ginseng season 2012

5...I hate to hear your seng is so stressed this quick. I really wish they would leave our start date alone, it would allow us to get more red berries in the ground instead of in a critters belly. Most stuff I have found so far has dropped its berries. I feel the berries have a better chance if I get to poke them in the ground. Just my 2 cents. Good luck to ya!

SengNveins

thats great 5 good dggen i understand the loggers need to make money too but it seems they take the best seng areas n make diggen almost impossible went to prospect an area a few weeks ago to find that loggers cut every tree in that perfect bowl it will b yrs b4 the seng comes back

SNV - The ginseng around here just never set berries very good because of it being so dry during May and June. In the lower areas the ginseng is still in pretty good shape, but higher and dryer areas have suffered. I've seen it pretty much gone along some ridges. We did get pretty good rains in July and August so the stuff that held on past mid July is still in decent shape for the most part, but some are starting to yellow now, and probably wont last too awful long.

Hobbler - although it is frustrating to see a real good area get logged it really doesn't bother me too much as long as it isn't clear cut. The ginseng will be thick in areas like this in about 10-15 years. Strip mining on the other hand can wipe it out for a long, long time.

Well guys, I got out for a little dig tonight and really had an excellent time. I have to give some background info as to why this was so enjoyable for me... Two years ago in the fall of 2010 I only senged areas that I'd never been to before. I covered lots of ground and really did not find very much ginseng, at least not of diggable size. It was very dry that year and a lot of the seng went down early in Sept. One of the Highlights of that fall was finding some big old roots in a small woods. I did not dig a lot of plants that day, but I remember that the 6 biggest roots combined to weigh 7 ounces. Tonight after work I decided to go look the area over. 2 years isn't really enough time to give an area time to regenerate, but I know that I hadn't dug real close, and was hoping that some were lying dormant that year or had already gone down...

Well I didn't find any 1 ounce roots tonight, but did find a dozen nice diggers. 3 4-prongs in the bunch and a few really nice 3's. I also left a bunch of 2's and 3's as well as a bunch of baby 3 leafers that had sprung up from the berries that I had planted in 2010.

This is one of the strangest places that I've dug. I consider it strange because that steep hillside has a very heavy clay soil, and there is a natural spring up the hill that keeps that ground moist all the time. I wonder how those plants dont suffer root rot being stuck in that moist clay, but these are some really healthy looking plants... go figure. I probably wont visit again for about 5 years, and really hope and expect to see some really big healthy looking plants then.

I suppose I should share some pics. I didn't take many in the woods as my battery was about dead. Here is a nice 3 and 4

Here's a nice patch of younger plants. I left all of these except for the 4prong in the right hand side of the pic

The total haul.

My two favorites of the days

Cograts 5...good looking roots! Them tops look good also.

SengNveins

Here's the pic I accidentally deleted while trying to edit post.