TOPIC: Growing Goldenseal For Extra Income

Pretty cool Whitjr. How long you been growing and selling water plants.
Latt

Hey guys, good thread.

Goldenseal can be a profitable crop to cultivate, but one of the main limitations is access to affordable planting stock. You almost have to build up your populations, then sub divide the roots for replanting to get it up to scale. The other thing with goldenseal, as Latt mentioned, is that will grow better in a looser tilled soil and produce higher yields. This also means more labor and bed preparation. If you factor in the time and labor costs to revenues produced it can really effect the bottom line for a small producer in the short term.

Here is a link to a study done on the economics of growing woodland medicinals by Michael Jacobson and Eric Burkhart at Penn State University that can give some insight to the economics of growing these plants. Some of you might find it interesting. One aspect of the data presented in this paper, that is variable based on the individual grower, is the labor rate ($). Most of us would probably agree that growing is as a much a labor of love, as it is profit motive.

www.cinram.umn.edu/afta2005/pdf/Jacobson.PDF

Another crop that wasn't previously mentioned in the thread is Black Cohosh. The prices for black cohosh on the wholesale market are low, but there are value added opportunities that growers can take advantage of. Specifically for landscape value. Someone like Whit, who is already exploring nursery development could take advantage of that market. A mature black cohosh in flower can be potted up and sold directly to consumers as a shade landscape plant for appx $15 (Ohio direct marketing price). So $15 for 1 mature plant vs. $4-$5 for a dry Lb.? Bloodroot could also fall into this category, but the price would be a bit lower because it is much smaller.

Ultimately it is important to be diversified in what you grow because trends change.

Rural Action Forestry
www.ruralaction.org

In the previous post, the link is not to the document I intended, although it is good. The document I meant to link to is called \"Transitioning from wild collection to forest cultivation of indigenous medicinal forest plants in eastern North America is constrained by lack of profitability\" It was published in the journal Agroforestry Systems in 2009. I could not find a copy available online, and wasn't able to attach it to this post because they don't allow you to post PDF files. If anyone is interested in the document you can email me directly and I will send it to you.

I also came across this when I was looking for the document. It is a link to conference proceedings from a growers conference that Rural Action and Penn State School of Forest Resources put together in 2008. It contains presentations from Scott Persons, Andy Hankins, Jeanine Davis, Bob Beyfuss and several other names that you all might be familiar with. Take a look

www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/wildplant/...ming_proceedings.pdf

Have a good weekend

Latt- Growing mostly, right now. No revenue in yet. Actully, I don't think I'll have any selling going on for another year. My business plan really doesn't include sales for the first 4 years... only development.

Sometimes there are setbacks in the business plan, tho... for example we had a severe wind event/thunderstorm about this time last year, which blew the roof off the greenhouse. We are now on roof 2.0. also, I didn't plan well enough for the freakin' bitter cold which is unusual here in NC - last winter. Lost boucoups plants due to that, We moved these inside since they were frost intolerant.

All in all , I'm happy with the progress, the business model is working out pretty good, and the pond liner for the bog pond will arrive next week.

Whitjr

I realy enjoyed your water plants and ponds that is very interesting to me and for sure different. Thanks for sharing these photos.

Billy.

Whitjr,
I used to have a fish pond in my back yard that I dug by hand back 15 years ago. I finally got tired of cleaning the black sludge made of decomposed leaves and plant matter and I eventually filled it in with a large load of top soil and made a shade garden out of it about 8 years ago. The pond was 25 feet long and 3 to 4 feet deep and 6 foot wide. It took me a month to dig it. (Younger and dumber and much stronger lol).

I lined it with 45 mil roofing rubber.It wasn't fish safe but the 45 mill roofers membrane was much less expensive than the membrane from the fish safe liner supplier. I never had a problem with it either. It was beautiful. I had water plants from the wild growing in submerged plastic pots with soil in them and then gravel on top the soil in the buckets for the root system.

I had a \"little Giant\" water pump that brought water down the granite rocks that I got from a local farmers field for a waterfall affect. I had rounded glacier granite rocks the size of basket balls or larger that lined the pond. I used to go fill my truck up with these rocks and the farmers always had a nice pile of them in each crop field and were glad to see them disappear.

I miss the pond but not the work keeping it clean. I used to put bluegills in the pond to eat the mosquito larva. I had large goldfish in it too for a while. But the Sand Crains would stand there patiently and eat them one at a time. Some of the goldfish were 10 inches.

I hope I can find a pic of it and scan it and post it. It was like a little paradise and used to be really relaxing to be around.

So I can relate somewhat to your passion in growing water plants.
Good luck,
Latt

Latt and Billy-

You guys are right.. the plant ponds are very nice. And these get me outdoors a lot.

As to the cleaning of them.. I look at each pond as a small ecosystem. Plants make o2 out of co2, fish consume it. Goldfish eat bugs/algea/churn the system. Trapdoor snails eat all the algea they can. Nature puts leaves in the water from the surrounding trees, which gives the goldfish somewhere to survive the winter. Frogs fit in there somewhere... maybe for the music component...

I do not use pumps at this time, and my ponds are pretty clean. I use the skimming net about once a week, and I do a major clean about once a year w/ hose powered siphon to get out the stuff on the bottom. However I don't remove all of it as the frogs/fish need something to protect them from the cold in the winter. All my ponds are dug w/ trenched down the middle to move the potted plants into for overwintering.

This isn't supposed to make a lot of money for me.... just an adjunct to my retirement income. If I was going to make megabucks on it, like enough to support a growing family, I'd have to be further south where the growing season is longer, and I 'd have to have a much bigger pond size approach.

Whitjr,
All this talk about the pond and water plants makes me want to go grab the shovel and start digging. I wouldn't mind having a smaller pond again.
Thanks Whitjr.
Latt

I hear ya man i realy like that.

Whitjr wrote:

Latt and Billy-

You guys are right.. the plant ponds are very nice. And these get me outdoors a lot.

As to the cleaning of them.. I look at each pond as a small ecosystem. Plants make o2 out of co2, fish consume it. Goldfish eat bugs/algea/churn the system. Trapdoor snails eat all the algea they can. Nature puts leaves in the water from the surrounding trees, which gives the goldfish somewhere to survive the winter. Frogs fit in there somewhere... maybe for the music component...

I do not use pumps at this time, and my ponds are pretty clean. I use the skimming net about once a week, and I do a major clean about once a year w/ hose powered siphon to get out the stuff on the bottom. However I don't remove all of it as the frogs/fish need something to protect them from the cold in the winter. All my ponds are dug w/ trenched down the middle to move the potted plants into for overwintering.

This isn't supposed to make a lot of money for me.... just an adjunct to my retirement income. If I was going to make megabucks on it, like enough to support a growing family, I'd have to be further south where the growing season is longer, and I 'd have to have a much bigger pond size approach.

Check out this website on goldenseal seed. It talks about keeping seed in the frig and washing the seed much like I had described. I am going to pick some ripe red goldenseal berries/seeds tomorrow.
Latt

www.horizonherbs.com/pilot.asp?pg=goldenseal