TOPIC: Seed Producing Bed 06/28/2013

Hey Folks..

I got out and took a few Pics of my Seed Producing Bed this evening.

Last June we had a string of 100 degree days and it was bad dry. I was having to water my seed bed plants and some of them even with watering every other day started kicking the bucket.

Big difference this year.

It has been much nicer and my seed bed plants are doing good / looking happy this year.
If this decent weather holds out perhaps I will get a decent crop of berries this year.
Hope So. Last year I did get a few but only a few.

Here is what they are looking like today.

TNhunter

Flower Spikes with flowers just poping open now...

A couple of nice 4 prongers...

Most have big broad leaves, looking real good.

Here is a nice 4 prong and this is one of my local roots/plants.

It is the stoutest plant in the bunch and you can tell it is a Middle TN plant because of that short flower spike. Most plants I find around here, even if big and stout still have a short flower spike (almost always below the leaves).

Here is a pic of the bed from the top of the bed looking down the hill.

That flower spike that is up over the leaves on that first plant there is one of the roots that Billy sent me. Out of the 40+ plants in the bed, only the ones that Billy sent me have tall flower spikes like that.

It must be a genetic thing or something.

If it was growing conditions, you would think after a couple of years that the ones that Billy sent me would start having shorter flower spikes, but nope they continue on.

TNhunter



Hope you all have a Great Weekend !

Very nice TN,

Your plants sure look healthy and a good green color.

I've noticed my native plants have lower seed pods also. I think this kind of hides them somewhat from predators.

rootman

Rootman...

It also hides em from seng hunters some too.

No doubt those plants with a tall spike full of red berries (up above the leaves) are easier to spot.

Red berries down below the leaves are much easier to miss.

TNhunter

Besides having a very nice seed bed TN, it will be interesting to see if any of the seeds from your local native plants have the traits from Billy's tall seed spike due to cross pollination. For some reason mother nature has chosen to reward ginseng with taller seed spikes in Billy's area. So over time ginseng plants with taller seed spikes are more successful. Therefore over the centuries this tall seed spike trait has become more and more dominate. It makes you wonder why mother nature has rewarded plants with taller seed spikes in Billy's area or any area for that matter.

I would surmise it could be that plants with taller seed spikes present their berries more readily to birds, deer, mice, turkey and so on and are eaten and passed through the animal spreading seed throughout the forest. Seeds from these berries are more successful at being eaten and spread out for germinating. This happens in nature often and it is called evolution. I firmly believe in evolution but I do not let that get in the way of my belief in GOD. Not sure how I got to this subject while typing about tall seed spikes but oh well.

One of my favorite sayings is this. \"GOD created Charles Darwin so he could explain Evolution to the rest of us.\"

Back to seeds, Tn it looks like you may get a couple thousand seeds if all goes well.
Good luck and keep us posted. Very interesting post.

Latt

That's a very nice seed bed TN hope ur bed flows thick with berrys
Here in NY we have the tall berry pods
Im gonna tranplant a few of the biger roots I find this yr inti a seed bed wirh the price of seeds goin up so much ever yr its hard to buy the amount I would like to plant every yr good luck to ya thxs fir sharing

Bob Beyfuss was nice enough to respond to my email on this and sent this to me. He was going to post it on Wildgrown but it didn't go through so I just cut and pasted it below with his permission below.

Sent: Saturday, June 29, 2013 6:04 PM
Subject: RE: Tall seed spikes.


Hi Latt

I believe peduncle (seed stalk) length is a genetic trait. This is based on observations of wild transplants from a dozen states in my research gardens. Some are long, some are short and that remains the same every year. I have observed 4 prong plants in Georgia that had no seed stalks at all until the four prongs were more than half expanded. The plants emerged in April, but did not grow any seed stalks until June. My transplants from Arkansas also bloom and ripen berries two weeks later than those from NY and this not changed in 10 years.

Tall berry heads are not necessarily an evolutionary advantage. Deer are predators of ginseng, not dispersers. Has anyone ever seen ginseng seed in deer droppings? Deer have done far more harm to wild ginseng populations that diggers, even including poachers. Regulators need to figure out how to regulate deer from eating sang. DNR wildlife managers need to talk to plant managers and get on the same page. Ginseng disappears when deer populations exceed 15 per square mile. Some DNR managers aim for 20 per square mile to keep hunters happy. This has been researched by Dr.McGraw at WVU and published. The same is true for turkeys that have gravel in their crop. Turkeys that don't have gravel in their crop MAY disperse seed but it is not at all likely or common. The only other bird ever photographed eating berries are wood thrush. If anyone has pictures that show other birds or any other critter eating berries I would like to see them. Bears, raccoons, fox and coyote scat often has seeds in it. That makes them more likely ginseng dispersers.