TOPIC: More pictures from Tennessee

My first plants just came up this week. In the area of Marion/Monongalia Counties of WV. Elevation 850.

The man spoke of is not longer in the business he is elderly and now just does volunteer work. He measured his yield in tons per acre and sold to buyers in NYC and I believe New Jersey. He planted a 100 or better lbs per acre in raised beds in augmented soils (fertilized and heavily limed due to his land a PH. He did this for 20-30 years and spoke of poor second growth if planed in the same spot over. He did spray prior to fist emergence of ginseng during first and second year and only sprayed otherwise if the plant had fungi or disease. Harvest with tractors and even a homemade shaker table fore the dirt. Pictures I have seen were wagon loads of root taken in to be cleaned and sorted to Custom built drying rooms and large refrigerated rooms on site. The bulk of his work was in the shade of forest but he did have several acres of shade cloth a few times that he let mature to 6 years and in the woods up to 11 years was his best profit and yield. He said some plots he let go to 20 years but for profit he told me 8-11 years he always did well and yield and price. He most always sold wet vs fully dry and by the pickup bed full of or enclosed trailer. It was amazing the pictures I did see.

I sure hope to one day be just half as big as he was.
Plans this year are to prepare raised beds and plane 1 acre with 40lbs of seed.

Sounds as if you have a fine fella to learn from there. I'm sure you can save many mistakes with help from him. Good luck!

Hillhopper

WVwhitewolf,
What a great experience and I appreciate you sharing it with us. Was that fella's first name Bill? I do not want to say to much to out of respect for yours and his privacy. But if it is Bill I had talked to him one time for quite a while on the telephone. He is an older fella and pretty much dug and sold all of the ginseng he planted and finally got out of the ginseng business after many many years. He was an interesting fella and told me about the trees he raised, the honey farm, the mushroom farm and more all on his property.
Just curious,

Thanks,
Latt

Great thread gentlemen! I havent found the time to get on the old puter much lately and just came across this. I think we all love those old virgin forests that are hard to come by these days. It looks and soundslike several of you guys are having pretty good success with your growing endeavors thus far too. Congrats! Some of the plants are still coming up in my area, but the majority are up now. I had really good emergence with one of the two sources of seed that I planted last fall. The other seed did not show good embryo growth, but I planted it anyways. If it doesnt sprout this year perhaps I will get a delayed emergence next spring. The older plants are looking good, but the area that holds the majority of my older plants is about to be select cut. I feel that I have no choice but to go in soon and top all of my plants that are 3 prong or bigger. I also have some new 3 leafers in these woods that may meet their demise from logs being drug across them, but I'm not sure there is a lot I can do to prevent that.

I wish you all a very good growing season

5prong,
I'd definitely top the plants where they are going to cut timber. Timber cutters most of the time will dig everything they see. My advise would be is to top everything to be on the safe side. If they just select cut that might work in your favor later on. I've seen seng do really good growing in downed tree tops and the added protection from deer browsing.

Good luck 5prong,
rootman

rootman,
I agree with your assessment. As a matter of fact those are exactly my thoughts. I was out topping plants tonight.

I was surprised at 2 things tonight. The first thing was how many plants I found that had already been browsed by deer. These plants have only been up for a little over a week for the most part, and I found quite a few that had been grazed on already. The second surprise was that the seed scource mentioned above that had not shown any signs of life has begun to sprout. I had just about written them off for this year, but found several pushing through the ground tonight. Its still too early to say for sure, but it looks like they will have a pretty decent germination percentage too.

Hillhopper...

That is a NICE looking bunch of 3 year olds.

I looked at one of my 3 year old patches last Saturday and found a few nice 3 prongs in the bunch, but still lots of 2 prongs and even some that were just big 5 leafers.

I did see a few that are going to have flower spikes/berries. That's nice.

Your location there must be near ideal to be putting out all of those nice 3 prongs at year 3.

Congrats !

TNhunter

Last year the deer had run amok in my newly emrging plants. I was very dissapointed in seeing that. However was realyy happy that the amount of 3-leafers that were coming up.

TNhunter wrote:

Hillhopper...

That is a NICE looking bunch of 3 year olds.

I looked at one of my 3 year old patches last Saturday and found a few nice 3 prongs in the bunch, but still lots of 2 prongs and even some that were just big 5 leafers.

I did see a few that are going to have flower spikes/berries. That's nice.

Your location there must be near ideal to be putting out all of those nice 3 prongs at year 3.

Congrats !

TNhunter

I agree. Great looking 3 prongs Hopper. I've got a few 3 prong 3 year olds too, but the majority are 2 prongs with some 3 and 5 leaf plants mixed in. That high calcium soil seems to really be paying off for you. The surprising part to me is that they added the extra prong after going down so early for you last year....

They do seem to be doing pretty well. About 75% are that size and I surely thought last year would have set them back as well. Deer have discovered them since they have a little size to them now.. that big four prong with a second tier coming up I posted a pic of awhile back, they eat the top of it too. That's aggravating, iv never seen one in the wild before and was looking forward to seeing how it turned out. Oh well, there is always next year lol

Hillhopper