TOPIC: About how many mature (3 or 4 pronged) roots in a dry pound?

Hi,
I was just wondering if anyone knew about how many mature roots usually make up a dry pound. I won't hold anybody to this of course, just based on experience does anyone have an approximation?


Thanks!

Alarson,

I have never actually counted from my wild seng.

In Scotts book he says to seed at a 4-5 seeds per sq foot rate and expect 1-2 mature plants per sq ft at harvest time.

He also says that for every pound of seed you plant that you should harvest around 7 lbs of dry root.

A pound of seed is around 7000 seeds.

So for every 1000 seeds you plant you should harvest around 1 lb of dry seng roots.

If you start off with 4-5 per sq ft and end up with 1-2 per sq ft.

On the low end 5 seeds produce 1 mature root (20% survival to harvest).

On the high end 4 seeds produce 2 mature roots (50% survival to harvest).

Again 1000 seeds should yield around 1 pound of mature roots.

50% of 1000 seeds would be 500 roots.
20% of 1000 seeds would be 200 roots.

I expect the answer is going to be more like 250-300 roots per pound.

Now that could vary quite a bit depending on the size of the roots, excellent site (high calcium levels) vs poor site (low calcium levels).

TNhunter

alarson,

I looked thru Scotts book and found on page 92 where he mentions that around 285 roots per dry pound is about average for wild seng.

Again I am sure that varies quite a bit at different locations.

I know for sure (based on pictures I have seen posted here) that the seng roots that Billy and Chieftan and those guys harvest up in the mountains average larger than the ones we harvest down here in Middle TN.

I expect we average more like 300-350 roots per pound here where Billy and Chiefton may average more like 200-250.

There was no real difference in the price offered for our roots vs theirs though - at times our buyers were offering more for our roots than they were being offered for the larger mountain roots.

TNhunter

I think TNhunter is right on. When I sold mine last year, I believe it took around 350 roots for me to make a pound. I will tell you that my roots weren't nearly as big as those mountain roots Billy sometimes dug.

Thanks a bunch guys!