TOPIC: Seed producing bed - flower spikes...

Guys, SURPRISE! Plants with red berries already!

This picture was taken about 80 feet from the first one. Both of these plants were from seed that came from Wisconsin.

This 3rd plant is a native wild ginseng plant from here in Kentucky. It is in the same area as the other two pictures.

Rootman, not only a big difference in berries, the local wild plant above has much more pronounced green color and leaf edges. What an amazing side by side comparison on wild verses plants grown from bought seed.
Thanks for sharing.
Latt

Latt, There is a big difference in the local and the plants from ordered seed.

What I've found out over the years is the native wild is smaller but stronger, texture wise and the stems are tuffer and more stringy. It also has more of a resistance to weather changes and a built in immunity to a lot of the diseases that ordered seeds and plants will not tolerate. I would advise anyone starting a seed producing patch to have at least one truly wild patch to get your seed from.
The only draw back is that wild ginseng is slower growing.
The pictures above, the plants from ordered seed are about 8 years old, while the wild plant is probably 10 to 12 years old.

rootman

I have seen generally the same thing. However, in most states like Ohio, we cannot collect berries. The best we can do is harvest wild plants and then transplant them into a controlled environment where we may be able to obtain seed from them. I think it would depend on which officer is reviewing the circumstances, however, whether that might be considered a violation.

That said, I have a pretty big wild root that I transplanted into one of my raised beds. It came up early and got nailed by all that cold weather we had. It looks horrible. It is a big thich four prong stem with only three leaves that are half size, and three more that a barely leaves at all. But, as of right now, it is putting on a full pod of berries and the bottom half are about 3/4 developed. Like the top of the plant, the berries are still completely dark green. The others I transplanted in from the same trip look normal and are just starting to put on seed. A couple still have flowers toward the top of the seed pod. They came up about a month later.

Castle,
That's the regulations here also. A person would actually want mature 3 and 4 prongs to start their beds with. I'm sorry I hadn't made myself more clear.

rootman

rootman wrote:

Castle,
That's the regulations here also. A person would actually want mature 3 and 4 prongs to start their beds with. I'm sorry I hadn't made myself more clear.

rootman

I agree. I personally see no problem moving legally harvested roots into a seed bed where you can use some form of common agricultural practice to maintain them (wire to protect tops from birds, irrigation hose etc) for producing seeds of that wild strain.

I don't know why anyone would have a problem with that as it increases the availablilty of wild strain plants. Sort of a captive breeding program if you will

Castle,

Good luck with your monster wild 4 prong and all your other stock.
Ginseng has its ups and downs but overall don't You love fooling with it?

rootman

Yes, it is fun isn't it?

Here is a picture of that plant. Certainly not a monster by any means, but a decent four prong plant ---if not for the cold damage it received early in the year. As you see, it is setting berries now, and the other plants are just getting ready to flower.