TOPIC: to plant or not to plant

I purchased 13 acres of land last year and there's about 2-2.5 acres that has about every companion plant that grows with sang growing on it but, no sang. I had planned on making this my grow patch but, when I went to transplant some roots yesterday I found that the dark loomy top soil is only about 6\" deep (shallower in some places) before it turns into a tan or red clay. I know that \"red sang\" is worthless but, I also know that some sang grows deep and some grow more spread out an inch or 2 under the surface. Should I abandon the idea of making this a grow patch with the risk of to much of the sang going \"red\"?

Also, where I planted my Goldenseal seed the top soil is deeper (around a foot or so) but, there's not a big area of it only about the size of 1 1/2 to 2 big swimming pools size. How close can I plant my sang to the goldenseal before it takes it over if I don't thin the seal? I don't know how fast seal will spread because I've never found so much as a single sprig of seal around here.

I wouldn't give it up just yet. Seed prices are high this year (and looks like they will be again next year also), so this might be an ideal time to do some test patches.

Get a modest amount of seed, plant them in small patches of 200-400 seeds in a well marked bed. See how they do over the next year or so. Put test patches in different areas to see how the micro climate affects the growing ginseng.

Most of the 'red' ginseng is ginseng that comes from pine groves or that are not dried properly resulting in a red tint.

INHO: 6\" deep of loamy soil should be pretty good for your plantings. It grows where it can, having it spread out [due to clay] isn't a bad thing, should make for lots of \"fingers\"

I wouldn't worry, people have been hunting ginseng for centuries. Until recently people didn't really pay attention to whether they were digging and area completely out. I have many companion plants in my area, but there are probably less than a thousand giseng plants in the whole state. I've never personally seen one in it's natural setting. Yet the wild-sim I planted seem to be doing well, unassisted in the wild. Ginseng used to be very prevalent here and was dug to nearly complete extinction almost a century ago. So just because and area doesn't seem to have ginseng doesn't mean it wouldn't do well there, it just means the demand for the plant wiped it out there and due to the plant's slow expansion rate it just hasn't recolonized the area. Then again you could have a toxic waste dump an not know it j/k