TOPIC: spacing question on seng

hey guys by no means am i an expert but i have played with ginseng patches all my life and until the last 4 or 5 years have i gotten serious about it. but anyways my question is i planted real thick behind my house where i could spray and take care of it. But further up on the hill it goes back to wild simulated where there is no way i could take care of it all. bur anyways i don e a test plot on some other land i own and planted super thick just like in my patches where i spray once a week or when it rains. Just guessin i would say 15 or more per squared feet do i have in my beds so spraying is a must to keep diseases out. But in my test plot it is going on the third year and i still havnt sprayed them and still no blight or any kind of disease has hit this patch. It is also very close to some wild plants and has some blood root mixed in and solomons seal. Do you all reckon that these plants are helpning in keeping diseases out of these patches or does it take longer for diseases to start hitting a patch. I will try and take a pic and show u guys both patches. Just an interesting thought i thought you all would like to hear.

Hillbilly,
Thanks for the post. All we hear about is that ginseng planted too close together is more prone to disease. I am sure that may be true. But \"More Prone to Disease\" and \"Will Cause Disease\" are two different things.

You have a perfect example of seedlings planted very close together and so far you are having no problem at all. I have 5 different spots in 3 different woods that have Wild ginseng plants grouped tightly together. I mean 15 or more four prongs in a 2'x2' spot sort of thing. None of these Wild plants show any kind of noticeable disease. I would estimate the age of them to be between 25 and 40 years old too.

I am not suggesting we plant ginseng too thick. I know the more air circulation that seng gets the better. Overcrowding plants can help spread disease rapidly.

What is interesting is when I first started growing ginseng I had no idea disease could be such a problem. Then I sort of went through a period where I expected disease to hit when planting seed and growing plants. Then disease doesn't come and one starts to think that maybe it's not going to happen and that it's not as bad as it is made out to be.

I am sure many will disagree and have seen disease wipe out their crop. Maybe I have just been lucky.

Hillbilly, what do you use to spray them with? Just in case I do get a problem someday. Spraying is one thing I know little about when it comes to ginseng. I am doing no preventative spraying or anything. After hearing about so many that do spray, I keep thinking I should be. But then I think I do not see a problem so why spray.
So confusing.
Latt
Thanks,
Latt

Latt good point indeed, but i spray just to make sure. After reading Scott's book one will spray trust me and even after talking with larry harding i started spraying. These guys have growed seng forever so they must no something. But anyways latt i do it for just in case hate to loose all of it because i didn't spray. But from time to time i will get a plant here and their that gets blight when i do i just pinch the top off and remove it from the patch. It has never been a real big problem though. But i use manzate latt Scott mentions it in his book and i have had excellent success with it. The exact type of manzate i will have to find out for you and dosage i use and will try and post as soon as i can. But on e example 2 years ago we had a very wet season and no one in the community got a tomato crop that year due to blight. Well me and my uncle used manzate on the tomatos everytime it rained or every like 10 days and he had beautiful tomatos throughout the year, and everyone else that didn't use it lost theirs. That was the main reason i started using it on my seng and since then i have only had blight to hit just one of my older plants. Hope this helps and i will keep u all up on the patch that does'nt get sprayed.

OK thanks,
Latt

Hillbilly,

Or anyone spraying chemicals - just a warning to be very careful.

I have two long time friends at Church that suffered cancer the past couple years, had surgery, chemo, radiation, etc. Both have made decent recovery - and are still testing clear at this point.

Both were exposed to fungicides/herbicides as farmers througout the years of their life and both are in their 50-60's now when limphoma type cancer showed up. In both of their cases the Dr hinted that it was most likely the exposure to those chemicals that did it.

If you do a google search on just about any fungicide and cancer you will find stuff like below:

==

Carcinogenic Effects
Ethylenethiourea (ETU), a metabolite of the class of chemicals in which mancozeb is included, has caused cancer in experimental animals and has been classified as a probable human carcinogen by the EPA (9, 13, 18, 21).

==

Growing seng is cool !

Getting cancer is a serious bummer !

If you are going to spray chemicals, be sure you follow the safety directions very well. You don't want to be breathing spray from that or having your skin exposed to it.

Be safe, not sorry.

TNhunter

Farming herbicideds/pesticides can definately cause the sort of Cancer you mention. Not to mention some restrictive lung dz's.

Careful is the path!

acording to this page manzate is no longer available
www2.dupont.com/Production_Agriculture/e...wable_fungicide.html
These are there current products
www2.dupont.com/Production_Agriculture/e...ungicides/index.html

Koolrayz i don't know why they say on the webpage that it has been discontinued for, because we just purchased some from our local farm and garden store just before farming season begin. I will be going back shortly and i will ask them where they are ordering it from.

Manzate is not manufactured anymore. Any that you find is from left over stock.

It has been replaced by Dithane - Mancozeb. Dithane has the same ingredient as Du-Ponts Manzate.

Every fungicide is produced with different names by other manufacturers.

classicfur

Thanks for the info guys. I still have some left that will do me for a long time. So i don't have to worry for awhile but it is the same stuff with just a different name is'nt it. Or why did they discontinue it. But once again thanks for the info guys.