TOPIC: Leaning more towards woodsgrown

Guys,

I've been doing some experimenting over the past 2 years on woodsgrown ginseng and I think it may be the better way to go.
I've been working up the ground, adding gypsum, just a little bone meal and small amont of triple 10 fertilize.
I then rake rows in ridges about 16 inches wide and a step apart. This will really make the ground loose and let the roots shoot down and grow.
I know the argument is woodsgrown is only worth half as much as wild but look at the seed production you will have later.

Any thoughts on this?

rootman

I think if you stay away from the fertilizer, you won't be able to tell the difference in the those roots and wild after about three years.

The other thing I\"m noticing is that I don't have replant failure with wild sim (certainly not with truly wild plants either) like I do with woodsgrown where I til the beds up first. I've not fixed a connection, but it seems to be there.

Rootman,
I think you should do whatever you feel like doing. I think the whole concept with wild ginseng is people have always viewed it as free money, now granted 300 yrs ago that may have been the case. but today you have costs associated with finding the free money, fuel, equipment, time. Wild-simulated is one way to find the now \"not so free\" money. It requires more cost, land, fuel, equipment, security ect. and the biggest draw-back of all is the wait time, the time you have to wait until you can realize any meaningful income. That is probably the single most reason people ultimately give up or change directions and it is perfectly understandable. As long as people continue to buy our product there will always be a need for woods-grown for consumption, or rootlets, or seed. either way you will still be growing ginseng and thats a good thing.

BCastle, What kind of sucess rates do you have replanting in cultivated beds? Does it ever work? I have been digging a lot of my beds this year and am thinking about replanting them, especially the areas where I havnt had any disease problems. Thanks.

BCastle wrote:

I think if you stay away from the fertilizer, you won't be able to tell the difference in the those roots and wild after about three years.

BCastle,

Have you tried Lime to break down the dead and down leaves, wood, weeds and brush more quickly to add the nurishment that the plants need? I would think that Lime would be an effective agent with less impact on the appearance (wild grown vs cultivated) of woods grown Ginseng since it aids in the decompostion of dead organic and other matter (i.e. dead animals, bugs and excrement).


Frank

Lenno,

Most often I have pretty good luck when transplanting in roots. The older roots seem to be able to stand the change better, but I've had varying success (and a few failures) with rootlets of all ages. I no longer sell 1 yr old woods grown partly for this reason.

Huntsman,

I don't use lime at all. I have used gypsum now and again, but not always and not regularly. My goal is to produce the closest roots I can to true wild in look and all other qualitys. Therefore, I try to not get carried away with too much in the way of amendments.

Rootman, I think that if you have time to get out and spray the fungicides, it will be a great way to get seed production. I kinda agree with Castle as far as steering away from the fertilizer. I think that without the fertilizer the roots are shaped muched more like wild roots, but from my limited experience it seems that woodsgrown roots from commercial seed sources are a good bit larger on average than \"truly wild\" roots. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, if you can wait ten years to harvest. Fertilized roots generally have a noticibly different appearance.

rootman I think that as far as a seed producing bed you are going to get more seed the way you exsplained it no doubght,but the root would grow smooth and would not as you said have near the dollor value I think that in this question it is simply what you are wanting from the plant.

When I plant stratified seed i never do any thing at all to it just put it in soil and leave it,if it lives good if it dont it was just a seed.

Billy.


rootman wrote:

Guys,

I've been doing some experimenting over the past 2 years on woodsgrown ginseng and I think it may be the better way to go.
I've been working up the ground, adding gypsum, just a little bone meal and small amont of triple 10 fertilize.
I then rake rows in ridges about 16 inches wide and a step apart. This will really make the ground loose and let the roots shoot down and grow.
I know the argument is woodsgrown is only worth half as much as wild but look at the seed production you will have later.

Any thoughts on this?

rootman

BCastle, What about planting seeds, have you had much luck with that in beds where you already used?

Thanks, Lenno

I still have issues with replant failure in my woodsgrown beds, but not so much with wild sim.

This could be because of allelopathy of ginseng plants toward the germination of seeds, but that doesn't seem to affect wild patches or even wild sim patches. It might be the result of increased disease organisms in the soil, but if that were the case the commercial growers who innoculate the soil with a fumigant would be able to replant...yet they cannot.

The closest guess I have is that it is a combination of allelopathy and tilling which contributes to replant failure.