TOPIC: wanted to say hi

hey guys i have been a memeber to the froum for a while and have been lurking in the shadows reading and looking at lots of picures. in some ways i feel like i already know a lot of you and even consider you friends. i just wanted to say hi and introduce myself to my fellow sengers. i live in northwest arkansas and have been digging ginseng since i was 11, i am now 23. i am excited already for season to open so that i can go out and hunt for in my opinion one of the most beutiful plants in the woods. i have been around seng my entire life and have helped plant plenty of patches on my late grandfathers land that i hope never gets dug{i would dig it but it has a sentimental value to me so i just watch over it}. as of the past few years i have been planting new seed on some new property i have inherited and it seems to be doing very well i usually take the smaller roots from a days trip of senging and replant it somewhere a little closer to home. is this the right thing to do? will the root grow to a bigger size faster if it is in a better soil? the soil i have been planting in is a very rich black soil. it almost looks like potting soil. i have so many questions i am not even going to try to ask them all at once but i will make at least one other thread asking for opinions. thanks for all of your help already, i have learned alot from this website, and for any information i may learn from yall in the future.

thanks,
Terran

Hi Terran and welcome! I'm new around here too.

Ed and Terran

Welcome...This site is great.. I'm kind of new also...The people on here are top notch...Lotta help when you need it...

Welcome aboard fellas.
As far as planting in rich black loamy soil, I too have a spot like I have never seen before. When I got the soil tested the fella at Landmark asked me why I wanted to soil test potting soil. Organic matter is off the charts and the calcium is 6,700 PPA. PH is a bit high at 6.7 but in the acceptable range. I too am curious as to how the seed will develop on this spot. It is so loose and loamy only time will tell if it produces carrot like roots or good roots that resemble wild roots not cultivated roots. I have one spot from the old days back home that was rich black and loamy and loose and the roots were wild and were great wild roots. So only time will tell for both of us in this great soil.
Latt

I've seen it growing wild in that kind of soil before but the soil was full of chunks and chips of limestone. The roots were like any other good, healthy, wild roots.

Latt wrote:

It is so loose and loamy only time will tell if it produces carrot like roots or good roots that resemble wild roots not cultivated roots.

this is my major concern with the soil in this spot. im afraid it will just grow long spindley roots.



i went scouting today for a while in some of my more favorable spots and my seng is already yellow and dieing i hope i have some seng to hunt come september.

Welcome aboard guys!

Terran - I really feel for you man. The last two years have been like that here where I live in Ohio. The good news is that the ones you can't find this fall will be back for a future years harvest. What I did last year was get out there early and planted as many ripened berries as I could. The law says you can't dig them, but you can help out with the future. I did this in a few areas that I wasn't planning on digging last year anyways and pinched the tops off so that some poacher wouldn't come along and dig them. I think that this may slow root growth down a little if a person was to pinch them off while they were still very green and had say a month before they would start to die back for the year, but it sure isn't going to hurt the growth of the root if the top is already starting to wither.

Ed - Where are you located in OH? I'm in Guernsey Co. (Cambridge Area - Half hour east of Zanesville)

Highland County

Welcome to the site guys

Billy.

Hey guys welcome to the site. The people on here are great and with all of us on here their shouldn't be a question that one of us can't answer or at least point you to someone that can.

Having said that i have a place behind my house that i harvest once every seven or so years and its just like you said very loose blackish looking dirt. It does produce some very nice tops and some very big berry pods. and the roots are carrot like but they do have the growth scars and still other than most looking like carrots they are in deed wild and look it also.

Hope all you guys have a great digging season.