TOPIC: Goldenseal Planting

I just finished my Goldenseal planting, the first time Iv tried my hand at this. The area receives a little too much sun for Ginseng \"50-60%\" so I figured it would be a great place for it. Tilling up 4,000 sq ft of woods and planting 30lb of root on 6\" centers that you spent 4 hours cutting the rhizomes up is plenty of work.... Think I'll stick with Ginseng from here on out lol.

Hillhopper

Sounds like a lot of work, check out glacial golds website. They are buying wet/green goldenseal roots for 18 a pound. I guess they are reselling it for planting stock.

Hillhopper

Sounds like a huge planting of Yellow Root!

I found out last year that Goldenseal is a natural fungicide for Ginseng.

A friend of mine in Wisconsin is going to dig up a bunch of Goldenseal Roots from the sam hillside that my 6&7 yr old seng roots are growing.

I plan to plant the rhizomes in single rows along one edge of each seng bed.

Here's What Scott Persons said in his book.

\"Leaving weeds alone and interplanting other native species among your ginseng breaks up the monoculture and provides a less favorable environment for all pathogens. Several growers I know plant rows of goldenseal and/or bloodroot spaced one foot apart around the perimeter of woods-cultivated beds or simply in lines 6' apart throughout a wild-simulated garden.\"

I will plant goldenseal this spring and try this out on a small scale. If I have some rhizomes left over, I will plant them in one bed. Then down the road if I want to plant more along my seng beds, I can just dig up what I need.

So how many sections of rhizomes were you able to get from 30 lbs of root? I'm thinking you cut each root into 3-4 pieces?

Thanks,
classicfur

my buddy called glacial gold last week and they told him they would not buy at 18 a pound this coming season.

classicfur,
To be honest, I have no idea. Alot of these roots were really big and chunky and I was able to cut four or five out of one but most I just split into three and there were also alot of hair roots with buds on them that I cut off as well. I had a little over 4,000 sq ft worked up but didn't hardly fill it all so I would say that planting on 6\" centers in one foot rows would be somewhere around 8,000 root sections. Where I live, for some reason, we don't have any goldenseal growing to amount to anything so I wanted to start me a source for seed to spread around this area and hopefully get some growing again. Latt offered a half pound this coming season to get me going and then hopefully next year my cuttings will start bearing. I guess you could say it's just a re-introduction project because the labor I put into planting and what it would take to harvest wouldn't turn much of a profit and I can't see me continuing to plant cuttings year after year.

Hillhoppe, you are going to have one heck of a Goldenseal patch. Where did you get that much root stock? Can't wait to see the pics this spring or next.
Latt

Latt,
Your right, it should be a pretty good size patch. A buddy of mine in Kentucky has a couple big patches so he sold me a bunch to start me one as well. If nothing else I think it will look pretty cool, we also grow Japanese maples in my nursery so I planted a few red laceleafs in along with it to add some character lol.

Hillhopper

Hillhopper,
Wow, that is going to look awesome. Japanese Red Laceleaf Maples are so beautiful, expensive little critters too. I saw your post on your ginseng plants. That is amazing that some of the seed has come up already. It will continue to thicken up and some seed will not pop up until up to 2 weeks or more later than the first seed that emerges.
Good luck.
Latt