TOPIC: Improving Germination

Max
Its funny you mentioned the ants. Was tilling the other day and didnt really notice the ant bed under the satsuma tree. They made their presence known really quick.
Your welcome about the seedballs, if I can add a idea or two that will help then that will make my day.
Last night I was thinking about companion planting in on e of my experiments and I began to wonder on what I would do if I were in your shoes(its my hope the wife and I can move to ky one day)
I believe the actions I would take in this setting would be to find a plant(s)that would grow alongside ginseng but yet repel deer and then would mix the two(or more) into the seedballs .The theory being that they would jus find it too mch work and move on.
Dont know anything about goldenseal ,would this fit?
mike

To fellow members
I want to share with everyone an experiment with results that has me completely baffled.The only way I know is to go back to the beginning and hope some of you will be able to give an explanation of the results on why it is happening.First off the wife and I want to one day move to elkton Ky to be with the grandkids.(aint nothing like them is there?) I realized I would need an extra source of income when we did move and had thought about field cultivation of ginseng and goldenseal(after much research). So on a whim just to see what it would take to germinate ginseng and if it were even possible, I ordered a hundred seeds off of a ebay seller this past summer. Bought a large bag of potting soil mix(the ones where they add the fertilizers)punched as many hols I could in it,watered it down with some ocean water(diluted),planted as many seeds as I could in the holes,placed the bag under a shade tree and forgot about it. Not knowing on what to expect other then what I have read , I assumed it would be months, if any at all.Four weeks later I happen to glance at the bag as I was walking by and noticed one seed had germinated and had grown to about one inch in height. Now here is where it gets a little weird. By nov that seedling had grown to aprox 8 to ten inches in height. Now to be honest my first thought was that the vender had sold me something other then ginseng ,for what I was seeing was just not possible. Not in just a few months . This was contradicting everything I had read.So I left it there until the last week of november I transplanted it into a five gallon bucket and noticed the roots were just as long as the top. If I remember correctly there were three roots. A few weeks later, while we were away had a cold snap and the plant wilted over but at the bottom was new growth. Meanwhile another seed had poked its head up in the grow bag so I transplanted that into the bucket also.
Will have pictures to present late today(have to go out all day)
My questions are many and if anyone has any insight please let me know
thanks
mike

Forgot to add,I live in west mobile county and from where I live the gulf is only twenty minuste due south.Common sense tells me I should not be seeing on what Iam seeing.
mike

Hum, Sounds like something grew out of the bag but I doubt it was ginseng. Show us a pic and we can verify for you. If it was ginseng I am curious as to what happened for it to grow that fast and big.
Latt

Watched the seed ball video as well as a few others. Interesting, however I doubt it would work for ginseng seed. Ginseng seed cannot dry out and a seed ball would possibly prevent the seed from holding moisture or even absorbing moisture. I could be wrong but I doubt it.
Thanks for posting tho.
Latt

Latt
Here are the pics I mentioned
mikr

The one on the right is from the parent plant which wilted from the first cold spell and it regrew. aprox height is 3 inches.
The one on the left is the newest one I transplanted the other day
mike

Im not certain what those are but I do know for sure it is not Ginseng. You wouldn't happen to have a photo of the seed would you? Looks like someone may have passed something else off to you.

Hillhopper

Hillhopper

No I dont, they areall in the grow bag.well I will count it as one of lifes many lessons and move on from here.
thanks for the reply
mike

bigm,
I concur with Hillhopper. Not ginseng for sure. Perhaps the ginseng seed you got could still be in the soil and has not yet germinated. Often soil has weed seed in it and that's what sprouted. I would take the dirt and spread it in the woods underneath the leaf litter then rake the leaf litter back over it and see what happens this spring. Perhaps there is ginseng seed in the soil still.

Latt