TOPIC: Buy wild ginseng tops

I would like to help you out but I can't keep from eating the darn things while I'm still in the woods.

Do you ever experience a palpitation ie. sudden acceleration of heat beat by eating that much? I have had some episodes after trying several cups of the tea or eating 5 berries (cultivated) .

When you get to be my age and get to walking the hills around here your heart beat always goes up. I haven't noticed anything unusual.It does seem to make me a little more frisky at home. but I'm not sure if it's from the seng or just getting out in the wilds and getting some exercise.

The picture below shows 1 lb of dried ginseng leaves, they are not packed in the bags so hard as to crush the leaves only lifted by the handles lowered onto a surface to let gravity pack them. This is only the tops and not the entire stem.
Whenever i top my ginseng,i will use the same type of bags to collect it in.
After spending a few days in the woods topping ginseng boredom sets in and you will eventually come across the idea to count how many plants will fit into the bag. Yes as sad as it sounds i have counted the plants multiple times to figure out how many plants fit into the bag. So the average number of plants is around 2000, these are without most of their stem. Now after i dry the leaves, the mass changes and it then takes at least 2 bags to hold the dry ginseng. 2 of the bags will hold 1lb of dried ginseng leaves. so without the stems attached for small to medium size tops the average is about 2000 plants. The stems will probably weigh about 2 times more than the leaves so that would be about 3lbs if the stems were attached. with that being said then if you picked stems and leaves of small to medium size plants i estimate that it would take 650-700 plants to make a pound.
If you are digging larger 4 prong ginseng it will probably only take half of that about 325-350 plants, so in theory if you dig large ginseng then by saving the tops and stems you will probably be able to make an extra $50 per puond.

freshly bagged

K-duce,
It definately takes a lot of tops to make a lb. but I did dry a little over a 1 1/2 lb.

I kept the tops clean and dried them in the shade to keep the green color and also spread out to dry faster and keep from molding.

After drying I dropped them in a large box and every few days I would have more dry and add to it. I'd make sure the box stayed away from dampness.

Sent it off over a week ago, got a check Wed. from Dr. Ginseng.
Nice person

Its good that they are trying to develop a market for the tops, If prepared correctly there isn't much difference in the taste of ginseng green tea as other green teas, the trick is to get the right amount of leaves per serving, too many tops and the tea taste bitter, I usually boil my leaves for about 10 minutes then let it cool a bit, then pour it into a glass container and add water until it is about the same color as lemon gatorade. At that color the tea taste like any other green tea. It does not take many tops to make a gallon of ginseng tea, about 10-15.
Good to hear you was able to sell them rootman. now when you sell your dried ginseng you have a 75 dollar head start on the dealer.