TOPIC: oh no what do what to do!!!@!!@!

what pisses me off is the drug dealers tradeing pills for sang all spring long those pillheads dont care what they dig as long as it gets them high . I pinch every one and two prongtop off i see that way i know atlest afew make it to the next year.

We have that problem here in WV to. A lot of the pill folks digging all year and digging a lot of little stuff. My grandfather dug over a ton and half of ginseng in his lifetime. From the 1940s until about 1999. He even dug ginseng for the chinese when he was a prisoner of war for three years during the Korean war. He dug ginseng in the same area for all that time. Back then there was no season. He dug from May 10th every year until everything froze up. He never dug three leaves and the bigger stalks were dug but the top inch or so of the curl left to keep that years berry crop and future years of berry production. He learned that seng will remain dormant fpr years. Once timber gets so big the trees suck up all the moisture and a lot of big seng will send up smaller tops. What was a big four prong might be a five leaf. This seng will more than likely keep deterioating until something opens up the canopy. Timbering and clear cutting are not bad for seng. It bounces back better than before. Strip mining and mountain top removal is devastating. I think states need a program to replenish ginseng like the trout stocking program. Green seed would. be easy to drop from a helicopter in remote areas. We all need to order and plant seed every year. I try to plant at least a couple ounces every other year. Each place I dig. I believe whitetail deer do more damage than poachers. At least in our area.

How do whitetail do more damage than summertime poachers?

Most of our summer time poachers don't dig small roots. They leave three leaves most of the time. The deer are eating it as fast as it comes up. The plants need at least one or two growing seasons to establish some type of root. The deer eat the tops before this can happen. So you have areas where there are no three leaves or two prongs. Over time if it continues you get an area where you will find a few big stalks of seng but no small.

FWHedrick wrote:

Most of our summer time poachers don't dig small roots. They leave three leaves most of the time. The deer are eating it as fast as it comes up. The plants need at least one or two growing seasons to establish some type of root. The deer eat the tops before this can happen. So you have areas where there are no three leaves or two prongs. Over time if it continues you get an area where you will find a few big stalks of seng but no small.

FWHedrick,

Thanks for that information! I know a lot about Wild Ginseng but really did not realize that that was the main reason I was not seeing smaller plants scattered amongst patches of 3 and 4 prongs. I have located and dug many 3 and 4 prongs growing in patches that did not have a single flat top or two prong plants growing amongst or below them and at the time, could not reason why! I knew that Deer were a problem for young plants but I did not realize it was that bad. That explains why that when I lived in the Northern Mountains of West Virginia (October of 1984 to October of 1994) and dug lots of Ginseng, I would always find 3 and 4 prong plants but never a flat top or two prong. During this time period and especially up until 1993, the Northern Mountains of West Virginia had an extremely high population of Deer and boasted some of highest harvest records anywhere in the nation. Since around 1995, I would imagine that the Wild Ginseng in this part of West Virginia has done well since the Deer population was nearly wiped out due to liberal harvest kills, snow kills, Coyote kills, Hemorrhagic Fever and because the WV DNR had many herds shot, burnt and buried in an attempt to stem the Hemorrhagic Fever epidemic sweeping through the State. The latter was unnecessary and needless slaughter of thousands of Deer as Hemorrhagic Fever very seldom wipes out an entire herd and the Deer that survive become stronger and pass an immunity to Hemorrhagic Fever to their offspring. However, all Wildlife agencies back in the early 1990's did not know enough about the disease which is a virus back then to know this!


Frank

It was just the opposite here in the seventies and eighties there were very few deer in our area. They were a lot in the national forests but they were in small pockets elsewhere. You could find fairly large patches of seng at that time. My grandfather found a patch in the seventies that had 13 pounds dry. Even into the eighties there were large patches of a pound or so if you wete willing to put in miles of walking and lots of time. The biggest patch I have ever found was in 2007 it had two pounds of dry
It was growing on a very steep hillside in a bunch of tree tops. We have tested the deer problem with fencing by planting seed and fencing off half of it. The difference is amazing. Probably eighty percent of the seng is still growing in the fenced in area after five years and there are only a coupe of weak stalks outside of the fence. I really think states need to come up with a replanting program. Seed is not that expensive.

FWHedrick wrote:

Most of our summer time poachers don't dig small roots. They leave three leaves most of the time. The deer are eating it as fast as it comes up. The plants need at least one or two growing seasons to establish some type of root. The deer eat the tops before this can happen. So you have areas where there are no three leaves or two prongs. Over time if it continues you get an area where you will find a few big stalks of seng but no small.

it is still digging out of season. And poachers is any one digging out of season ,any way sugar coat it. And nerd reported

FWHedrick wrote:

Most of our summer time poachers don't dig small roots. They leave three leaves most of the time. The deer are eating it as fast as it comes up. The plants need at least one or two growing seasons to establish some type of root. The deer eat the tops before this can happen. So you have areas where there are no three leaves or two prongs. Over time if it continues you get an area where you will find a few big stalks of seng but no small.

they may not be digging small sein ,in summer . But the stuff they dig , needs to have a chance to produce Berries.I can and will not condone it

FWHedrick wrote:

Most of our summer time poachers don't dig small roots. They leave three leaves most of the time. The deer are eating it as fast as it comes up. The plants need at least one or two growing seasons to establish some type of root. The deer eat the tops before this can happen. So you have areas where there are no three leaves or two prongs. Over time if it continues you get an area where you will find a few big stalks of seng but no small.

it is still digging out of season. And poachers is any one digging out of season ,any way sugar coat it. And nerd reported

I agree the poaching needs to stop. All I was saying is in some areas its not the biggest problem. I think the age limit law is not the way to fix the problem either. I dug little three prongs this year that had four inch curls and a bulb root the size of a dime. I replanted them but a lot of people wouldnt. I think we need a law for minimum size roots not stalks. Sometimes I will dig a big three or four prong with a large berry pod and a small root. I always replant these if the root is undamaged. They are worth more as a seed producing plant than a dollar or two for a small dry root.