TOPIC: Turkeys are in my Ginseng!!!

I just went and looked at some Ginseng plots I planted last week.The Wild Turkeys are really destroying them.I don't know if it is the fresh earth,straw or the ginseng seeds that they are attracted too.I am suspecting that they are eating the seeds in the straw.I can't really tell if they are eating the ginseng seed or not.....Joe

Probably eating seed and scratching for bugs. Wish I could help with an idea on how to stop it but we do not have as many turkey problems here as we do deer. Maybe a few dead turkey laid near the patch would ward them off ??????
Good luck!
Latt

I\"m sure they are -or will if they get the chance.

Not a lot you can do about that short of fencing them off or laying wire horizontally above the beds to discourage scratching.

Turkeys can do more damage in a short period of time than anything else. When they start traveling in large flocks of 20-200 they can lay waste to massive amounts of land. You may want to avoid using straw in the open forest, it can open your ginseng up to alot of problems as well, Turkeys will sift through it for the grain, mice will also be attracted to it for grain as well as overwintering in your beds, the mice will make nice insulated homes in your beds if they have straw available,and eat your seeds in the bed, and probably in the spring when the hay starts to decompose and get slimy underneath slugs will have a good moist place to live while they attack your emerging seeds, (whatever is left)...Alot of times i try to make my ginseng beds as natural as possible, i dont remove all of the underbrush in my beds, i will also leave limbs scattered about my beds, i just try to make it inconvient for deer, turkey ect to eat up all of my hard work. Hope this helps.

There is often quite a bit of seed remaining in wheat straw and I expect that is what attracted the turkey to your planting beds.

They may have started scratching around in the wheat straw eating the remaining wheat and after digging around some may have found some of your ginseng seed to and then went deeper trying to get it too.

I remember seeing pic's that Larry Harding sent me last year of some large areas he had disked up and planted and mulched with wheat straw.

In the spring, it lookes like a wheat field (nice green wheat blades up everywhere). He said he sprayed some kind of chemical to kill the wheat, that was not supposed to bother the broad leaved stuff (like Ginseng).

So other than your current problems, this spring you may well have a nice green bed there that will sure attract deer and other critters as your ginseng is starting to sprout up.

I have considered using wheat straw myself, but think I will just stick to the leaves that are on the forest floor now.

This is probably one of those things we all need to put on our \"do not do\" list.

Other alternatives that should work, pine needles, shredded pine bark mulch.

Something like that that has no seed in it, nothing really to attract other critters or sprout and germinate the next spring.

Good Luck !

TNhunter