BCastle,
Thanks for the excellent write up on Commercial Growers of Ginseng and what they do! While I do not agree with it, I can somewhat understand their reasoning. Does that mean they are correct in their reasoning? Does it matter what I believe, no, as they can tell me to kiss off as it is their' business! As I previously stated, castrating a Ginseng plant by removing the buds before they bloom has similar effects as castrating a Bull to create a Steer. However, while both create a larger, heavier product with tighter cells and fibers, I believe the similarities end there. While a Steer's meat becomes mostly devoid of fat and the taste generally improves, I doubt the same can be said for Ginseng plants and roots. This technique may harm the production of ginsenosides and polysaccharide glycans (quinquefolans A, B, and C) in the plant and probably harms the taste and appearance which are unique to Ginseng, especially Wild Ginseng. I wonder if anyone has taken the time to do a study on the levels of ginsenosides and polysaccharide glycans (quinquefolans A, B, and C) and the taste on both normal and castrated Ginseng plants and their' roots??!! These factors more so than the appearance of cultivated Ginseng, may be the main reasoning of why that Cultivated Ginseng brings much, much less on the Ginseng markets!
I will make one more point then I will digress on this topic and get back to the O.P's original posting, if help, advice or information is needed. As far as labor activities and concerns for both harvesting the Ginseng seeds, plants and roots commercially are concerned. These can be done almost simultaneously! Workers can quickly move through a field removing Ginseng tops with berry (seed) pods intact by cutting them several inches from the ground and placing them into large tubs loaded on agricultural trailers. The tops and berries to be separated later. A worker or two goes back through and picks up any berries that fell onto the ground before or during the removal of the tops and places them in the same tubs. (However, if a cloth or clothlike material is placed on both sides of the plants prior to berry ripening, this would aid in the capture and limit the loss of any berries that may prematurely fall off prior to top and seed/berry harvesting.) Next (I would imagine that the Commercial Growers have tractors with extractors for the roots but if not), a tractor (the driver making sure not to get off course and damage the roots) turns (plows) up the soil in the rows which exposes the roots, making them easier to extract (harvest). The workers come back through and remove the roots and also load them in tubs on agricultural trailers. The harvest is done, now the separating, washing, drying and other processes begins! It sure seems much simpler than when I helped plant beds, plowed...disked and fertilized the fields, planted the plants, plowed and hoed the fields, removed suckers and Cut Worms, sprayed the plants, hoed around the plants again, removed the tops (blooms) and sprayed again, cut and speared the plants, removed speared plants from the fields and moved them to the barn, dried (cured), removed the cured leaves from the plants and graded the leaves from the plants harvested from 14 acres of Tobacco grown each year when I was 16 to 18 years old (oh and I left out a few times of hoeing)! Most of the plowing was done with a Work Horse named Bell as using a tractor after planting was not feasible and besides, the owner of the largest portion of the fields (about 11 acres), was too cheap to provide gasoline and oil for the tractor he owned.
While some may feel differently, please understand that I did not write this long winded post to be a smart-A&$ but wrote it to make a point!
Frank
