TOPIC: 20 yr old twin roots. very unique.

dug these today. thought they where awesome. can you tell me anything about them? Trying to get pic right.

sorry, all I see is one small two prong root.

cohoshdigger wrote:

sorry, all I see is one small two prong root.

Sorry, first time posting pics. i will get it in right. Both where 4 prong but not close to each other. twin in resemblance only. One was over 20 yrs old other was right under. really thick for length. and lots of water roots that hang tight. My first yr at digging but i kept at it. Over 10 pounds wet so far. Have learned so much. Sept 1st i had never seen a real live seng plant in the woods. Since i found my first one on my own i have not missed a day. Love it.

Here is what most roots look like around here. this is a pic of all todays roots.

how do you figure those roots are 20 yrs old in your pic with lighter. maybe you know more than I do. this pic looks like 3-4 ozs at the most. I don't know alot about all this as I do cohosh just now and don't dig regular. just doing it temp till I go back to work. it looks like you did a good job digging what roots I see they look like they came out of the ground with out damage.

cohoshdigger wrote:

how do you figure those roots are 20 yrs old in your pic with lighter. maybe you know more than I do. this pic looks like 3-4 ozs at the most. I don't know alot about all this as I do cohosh just now and don't dig regular. just doing it temp till I go back to work. it looks like you did a good job digging what roots I see they look like they came out of the ground with out damage.

The squiggly thing on top of root before stem is called the rhizome. each year the plant is alive and then looses its top it leaves a scare which looks like a band or wrinkle in the rhizome. its hard to tell in the pic but if you had the left root in hand there is 20 scares, ind like rings on a tree thing........only different. he bro good luck with the seng and work tooo.

Blistered feet...

Those two smallish roots are nice little bulb roots.

Did you say those two had 4 prong tops... they seem to be too small to support a 4 prong top.

I do find roots like that around my home place. I think it is just that they are living in a less than ideal location. The soil and or sunlight is just not exactaly what they need to thrive, but they live on anyway doing the best they can.

Plants that are growing in a deep shade location, with less than ideal soil, can still be smallish 3 prongers at 30-40-50 years, with tiny bulb roots. I find them like that around my place on a regular basis.

TNhunter

Same here TN, I've found roots that make these look kinda big that were over 20yr. That one on the left I can easily tell it is at least 18

I would suspect that the two roots at the top were bigger (longer main root) at one time! They both may have been damaged by moles or voles and eventually repaired themselves but especially so, the one on the right appears to have been damaged in the past.

I do agree with TN that they may not have been growing in an ideal location (in respect to sunlight vs shade) or soil (with the correct amount of nutrients/compounds) that was ideal for good growth!


Frank

wow. thanks I learned something. this internet is great we can all share info and learn a lot.